The Scottish Government's first dedicated economy secretary, Keith Brown, will meet business leaders and local business leaders and entrepreneurs from throughout the North-east when he visits the UK’s initial Centre for Entrepreneurship in Aberdeen today (Thursday, August 25, 2016).
Mr Brown, whose role is to promote economic growth and skilled job creation in Scotland will tour the £1million hub at Bridge of Don, which was set up to help facilitate the start-up and growth of new and existing businesses in Aberdeen city and shire.
During his visit, he will be introduced to the current cohort of participants of Elevator’s Accelerator Programme, which is for ambitious early-stage business owners and teams seeking to improve their business offering, growth and investment potential at an accelerated rate. He will also meet key representatives of the business community, including Russell Borthwick, chief executive of Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, Moray Barber, of KPMG and Andy Willox of the Federation of Small Businesses.
Keith Brown was appointed to the new role by Nicola Sturgeon in a Cabinet reshuffle after the May election. Following his appointment, he said that innovation and investment, together with tackling inequality, could help to boost the economy. Mr Brown also pledged a "clear and unrelenting focus" on creating a competitive environment for business.
“Harnessing innovation and nurturing entrepreneurship are central to our plans to drive economic growth and create and protect jobs in Scotland,” he said.
“The Scottish Government is absolutely committed to creating the kind of competitive business environment to help our businesses flourish. To make this happen we need exciting projects like Elevator making a real difference to the economy in their local area. It is really encouraging that Elevator is helping to facilitate the start-up and growth of new and existing businesses. As a first centre for Entrepreneurship, I hope it will go on supporting innovation, helping new businesses get off the ground and established businesses go on growing.”
Elevator Deputy chief executive Graham Morgan will welcome Mr Brown to the Centre.
“This is a challenging time for the North-east, but it is also a time of opportunities. The entrepreneurial agenda has become even more important to the local economy, indeed to Scotland, and Elevator is very well placed to make a real difference at this time.
“This visit will present the opportunity for the Minister to meet local leaders, and the staff at Elevator to discuss the North-east economy, and the various initiatives, including Opportunity North East (ONE), and the focus on economic diversification.
“We will emphasise the new high level of collaboration the exists now between the private sector, the local councils, ONE, the Universities, Scottish Enterprise and others. We will also talk about Elevator’s Educational programmes, and the impact they make on establishing a broad and far-reaching culture of enterprise in our region.
“Aberdeen has always had a strong reputation for innovation and has always been strongly entrepreneurial but at this time, perhaps more than ever, the need for diversification, new thinking and creativity is self-evident. The opportunity to share thoughts on all this and to show the positives that underly the challenges is fantastic.”
Figures from Business Gateway Aberdeen City and Shire show that the number of new business starts-ups in Grampian and Tayside has risen to its highest on record, breaking all targets and out-performing other regions in the rest of Scotland.
In the year April 2015 to April 2016, Elevator helped 1,276 people to start their business through Business Gateway services, 27% more than the 1,000 target set for the area. Of those, 555 (43%) were in Aberdeen city, while 721 (57%) were started in the Shire. The figures show that more than half of those starting a new business (51%) were women, while almost 6% were started by people who had been made redundant from the oil and gas industry.
In Tayside, where Elevator also delivers Business Gateway services on behalf of the local authority, more than 830 new starts were reported for 2015/16, surpassing its target of 800.
The statistics show that Aberdeen and Tayside are bucking the national trend as figures from the Committee of Scottish Bankers show that the number of start-ups across Scotland fell from 11,772 to 11,669 in the year from December 2014 to December 2015.