It’s now just two weeks until the Swindon & Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership hosts its annual conference and expo on Thursday 6th October.
Following the success of last year’s virtual event, the conference will once again be hosted digitally via the Hopin platform. The event is free to attend but registration is essential.
The theme for the day is ‘Doing Business Brilliantly’ and is aimed at all businesses and organisations striving to find out how to do business brilliantly or continue down the brilliance route.
Starting at 8:30am, the day is packed full of inspiring keynotes, discussions, networking and workshop sessions to help bring positive change to your organisation.
Hosting the morning keynote session (9:30-10:30am) is data storyteller, author and trainer, Sam Knowles. Sam is a prolific writer, blogger, trainer, consultant, Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Professional Speaking Association. He also holds a doctorate in Experimental Psychology.
Sam helps organisations make smarter use of data by considering the questions they ask, the insights they surface and articulate, and the stories they tell. He believes that insight is the superpower that drives innovation and enables us to understand the world from other peoples’ points of view – customers, colleagues, advocates or competitors.
Sam is poised to give the audience shortcuts to better productivity, fast-tracked innovation and organisational success.
The afternoon’s (13:30-14:30) keynote speakers are Adrian Clarke and Barny Guthrie, Founders of fast growing digital and face-to-face mental health care providers Clinical Partners.
Adrian and Barny will share Clinical Partner’s journey so far and how they have tried to ‘do business brilliantly’. They will touch on many challenges close to any entrepreneur’s organisation, the difficult subject of knowing when to invest and when not to spend, both the directors having different viewpoints; how they created a Senior Management Team and their decision process on selecting the team; the growing pains from expanding their employee numbers from 3 to 300 in a short period; knowing when to ask for help from third parties and how they navigated their way through obtaining a contract with the NHS.
As well as providing insight into their journey, Clinical Partners are also sponsoring the Conference and Expo this year. Based in Salisbury the firm provide expert advice from trusted clinicians online, in-person or over the phone, either privately or via the NHS. Their advice covers all areas of mental health and includes autism, depression, ADHD, self-harm and eating disorders for adults and children.
During the day there will also be an SME Panel Discussion (11:30-12:30) hosted by Paddy Bradley, Chief Executive Officer, Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership with local business guests including Sam Dharmasiri, Seer365, Hayley Lambert, Packaging Not Included and Laura Ward, Exeat. The panel will discuss ‘what doing business brilliantly’ means for them, the support they require and their thoughts for the future of business in our region.
There will also be workshop sessions hosted by local experts throughout the day, including:
- Doing business language brilliantly with Gera Solutions - Why language matters to your business, to your brand and to YOU.
- Keep the team performing brilliantly during change with Resolution Space - Insights and tips into how you can help your team to remain at the top of their game during change, to thrive and to grow.
- Protect your brand, designs and innovations – brilliantly - Learn how to identify what needs protecting, how to do it successfully and ensure your business’ assets remain yours! With Thrings Solicitors
- Doing Cyber brilliantly – simple tips for a digital age – Hosted by South West Cyber Resilience Centre
In 2021, the Conference and Expo attracted nearly 300 virtual delegates at any one time, with attendance from local, national and international guests with some from as far away as Belgium, Ireland, Spain, the Ivory Coast and Nigeria.
Paddy Bradley, Chief Executive Officer, Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership, said, “By hosting the event digitally, we prevent unnecessary travel, saving time and carbon emissions. We estimated a saving of circa 2.1 tonnes of CO2e by holding the 2021 conference online. Hopefully an example of the SWLEP striving to do business brilliantly.”
Doing Business Brilliantly takes place on Thursday 6th October from 8:30am-6pm. The event is free to attend as a delegate, but registration is essential. Book on here.