New BGF initiative encourages Scottish businesses to scale up for economic recovery

New BGF initiative encourages Scottish businesses to scale up for economic recovery

Paddy Graham

Businesses across Scotland are invited to engage in a major new national initiative launched by BGF and the ScaleUp Institute to address critical challenges as the country recovers economically from the pandemic.

ScaleUp Week: The Business Plan will take place from Tuesday, May 18 – Thursday, May 20, and will ignite a conversation on the future of scale-ups, innovation and investment throughout the UK.

The event is being led by BGF with the ScaleUp Institute and has the active support of the Kwasi Kwarteng MP, Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the Prime Minister’s Build Back Better Council.



The series of virtual events will see leaders of industry, investors, banks, academics and policymakers coming together to explore how the UK’s high-potential businesses can support the levelling-up agenda, drive progress in our communities, foster diverse workforces, achieve the transition to net zero and more.

Paddy Graham, head of the Central Scotland and Northern Ireland team at BGF, said: “Scotland has a strong presence of entrepreneurs and scaleups that are perfectly poised to capitalise on major opportunities and play an important role in accelerating economic progress across the UK.

“This new initiative is here to help deliver a more diverse, cleaner and fast-growth future for UK scaleups, many of which have just emerged from a long and challenging lockdown period and are now looking ahead for new growth opportunities.”

ScaleUp Week: The Business Plan will host a series of main agenda virtual events with themes including enriching the community, navigating the journey to net zero, finding a purpose and embedding a culture, unlocking ingenuity, making global Britain a reality, focusing on skills and no more glass ceilings.

Presentations will be led by government officials and business leaders including Kwasi Kwarteng MP, Secretary of State for BEIS; Noel Quinn, Group Chief Executive, HSBC; Baroness Brown of Cambridge, UK Low Carbon Business Ambassador and Peter Moores, Professor of Management Studies, University of Oxford.

Businesses in Scotland will also be represented with Willie Watt, chair of Scottish National Investment Bank and Karen Betts, CEO of Scotch Whisky Association contributing to the “Making Global Britain a reality: can growing businesses attract worldwide attention?” panel discussion. The session will take place on Thursday, May 20, at 10am.

The full programme of events and registration for attendees can be found here.

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