Nineteen of the North’s most talented entrepreneurs will be joining contestants from Dragons’ Den and The Apprentice for an exclusive Northern Leaders event in Leeds next month.
Speakers include 25-year-old Dragons’ Den reject Lucie Macleod, who walked out the Den empty-handed but grew sales in her business Hair Syrup by 66% and is set to hit turnover of £6.5m.
She’ll be joined by The Apprentice star Keir Shave, 27, who made it to week seven of the hit show and is the founder of Leeds-based telemarketing company Parallel Partnership.
The duo are part of a new breed of entrepreneurs who are changing the face of business.
The NGEs – or New Generation of Entrepreneur – have a reputation for being digitally savvy, bold, fearless, driven by social impact and wanting to do business differently.
Macleod and Shave will be joined at the exclusive event on June 17th in the Leeds office of KPMG by 19 of the names from BusinessCloud’s Northern Leaders Futures list.
The 75-strong name list is made up of people aged 45 or less who continue to make the biggest positive difference to the North.
The 19 confirmed names from the Northern Leaders Futures list are: 1. Sid Sethi, managing director, Specscart; 2. Sarah Bateman, CEO, Unify Energy; 3. Patience Tucker, CEO, wiQ; 4. Amy Whitell, CEO, Collctiv; 5. Kelly Weston, COO, DataCity; 6. Chris Hill, CEO, Northcoders; 7. Vimla Appadoo, co-founder and chief culture officer, Honey Badger; 8. Georgia Kirke, director, Write Business Results; 9. Danny Simpson, MD, Sales Geek; 10. Chelsea Slater, CEO, InnovateHer; 11. Jonathan Saatchi, managing director, MC2; 12. Brett Mendell, MD, Thomas Kneale; 13. Nuraz Zamal, founder/CEO, IMS Technologies; 14. Jen Fenner, managing director, DefProc; 15. Danny Manu, founder, Mymanu; 16. Oba Akinwale, commercial director, Loudspeaker; 17. Daniel Beaumont, investor; 18. Beckie Taylor, co-founder, Empower; and 19. Nick Richardson, founder, Insights Family.
The event runs from 5.30pm-7.30pm and will be hosted by BusinessCloud’s executive editor Chris Maguire.
Maguire said: “This is the third part of our trilogy of Northern Leaders events. It started with our awards evening in Manchester in January and was followed by last week’s event in Newcastle with Dragons’ Den star Sara Davies; Greggs CEO Roisin Currie; and Moja founder Sophie Milliken.
“However, we wanted to hold an event specifically for our Northern Leaders Futures list and this is it.
“We’re delighted to get high profile speakers of the calibre of Lucie Macleod and Keir Shave, alongside so many of the names from our Northern Leaders Futures list.
“It’s a unique event and we’re looking for commercial partners to work alongside. Please contact me at [email protected] if you want more details.”