Podcast Special: the Midlands’ Economic Disruptors

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4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2019

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

Martin Vander Weyer, our Business Editor, speaks to three leading businesspeople in the Midlands about the Economic Disruptor finalists in this region. Tune in to find out more about the company that makes your Asos returns quick and easy, an ‘Airbnb for schools’, and the next generation of light-weight car speakers.

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Human progress has depended on economic disruptors since long before the advent of the internet. Motor cars remained rare luxuries until a disruptor called Henry Ford perfected the Model T assembly line. Today’s online auction, home-stay, ride-share and crowdfunding sites have generated markets and money flows that barely existed before, to the great benefit of providers and consumers. Today’s manufacturing methods — from 3D printing to advanced bioscience — have dramatically reduced the time and capital required to produce vital products.

So, who are the companies that are rewriting the rules in 2019? Following the success of last year’s inaugural Economic Disruptor of the Year Awards, The Spectator and Julius Baer has come together again to celebrate creative entrepreneurship across the UK.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to this, the third of our series of 2019 finalists' lunches and podcasts for the Economic Disruptor Awards, sponsored by Julius Baer, the private bank.
0:20.2	So today, we're in Birmingham, or close to Birmingham,
0:24.1	we're actually at a splendid Victorian palace of a hotel called Hampton Manor, just by Birmingham
0:30.0	Airport. We're hosted by Julius Bear's regional manager for the Midlands, Mark Embley. Mark, say hello. Hello. Thank you. And we're joined by
0:42.0	our two guest judges for the Midlands region this year. First we have with us, Juliet Barrett,
0:49.0	who's the founder of Grenade. Hello, Juliet Barrett, co-founder of Grenade, which was a sports nutrition brand. We launched in
0:57.0	2010 in the UK selling sort of high protein products to primarily sort of gyms and specialist
1:03.6	stores. As the market's changed and proteins become more normalised, so is the business and we're
1:08.2	now a healthy snacking brand, selling a range of protein bar shakes spreads spreads to all sort of main UK retailers, including Marks and Sparks, Sainsbridge, Tesco's, ASDA.
1:17.2	We're disrupting the chocolate sector and we sell to about 80 countries.
1:21.6	And our second guest, Judge, today is Clive Borden.
1:25.8	Hello there. Clive Borden, I have a range of roles covering startups,
1:30.0	particularly folks on the tech environment. And the key strand of the work I do is I help people
1:34.3	scale businesses. So often working at an early stage, a young company, and looking at people
1:40.2	processing systems to get them to where they want to go. And that's by particular interest in today's group, is how they're going to build from
1:46.9	their early success.
1:48.4	And we ought to say that our connection with Clive is that he is part-time C-O of Warwick
1:54.8	Music, which was our regional winner for the Midlands last year.
2:00.1	So we're pleased to have maintained that connection.
2:02.8	And Warwick Music has just won a Queen's Award.
2:05.4	Indeed.
2:05.9	So we congratulate them.
	...

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