‘That Biz Week is still going strong after 20 years is as pleasing to me as it is critical to our community and economy’
INFORMAL CONVERSATIONS: Paul Sewell ready to welcome guests at Elevenses
EXCLUSIVE
By Phil Ascough
It started with YIBC – the Yorkshire International Business Convention – which brought together the great and the good, plus a few who have since been exposed as impostors.
Now Humber Business Week approaches its 20th anniversary event as a more sustainable model. Gone are the six-figure appearance fees commanded by some of the speakers, the helicopter shuttles between Harrogate and Hymers College, and the huge ticket prices and sponsorship packages which paid for it all.
Instead, there’s a Biz Week steering group and stakeholder group which put partnership before profit, with the members providing their services free of charge to deliver a regional festival of business.
Paul Sewell, chair of Sewell Group and founder of Biz Week, said: “In 2008 after the financial crisis a lot of the sponsors withdrew. For our part we became self-sufficient and that was down to the Biz Week spirit.
“A set of people came together to give their time, organising publicity and linking the events up, and it’s those people who are responsible for it coming to Hull and still running 20 years later. It had no governance or public funding and there were just two criteria – any event had to be about business and it had to deliver quality.”
FIRST EVENT: Paul Sewell in 2004
Paul was president of Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce and an influential figure in other organisations including Yorkshire Forward and the Bondholders when, in 2002, he first floated the idea of bringing YIBC to Hull.
He was on a chamber trade mission to Shanghai and was chatting over dinner with another delegate, Mike Firth, founder of YIBC. Mike’s response was “Why not Cleckheaton?”, but Paul was serious and in 2004 the event expanded to Hull and inspired Business Week.
The first one had an event every day with a Bondholders lunch on the Monday, Chamber Expo on Tuesday and Wednesday, Biz Ed on Thursday and YIBC on Friday.
Paul said: “We identified that only about six per cent of kids in local schools were interested in business and we wanted to do something about that. Without the help of Mike and YIBC and the excitement that generated it would never have got off the ground.”
Mike announced that the 2012 YIBC in Leeds would be the last, after 17 years of presenting stellar speakers including Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Armstrong and George Foreman. Michele Mone, Rudy Giuliani, Martin Bashir and Prince Andrew are among others who are now remembered rather less fondly.
BIG HITTERS: Paul Sewell with the politicians at Elevenses in 2022
Mike admitted the money wasn’t around to support such a lavish celebration and, apart from some more modest events in Rotherham, he left the way clear for YIBC to continue in Bridlington where, in 2017, it was succeeded by The Business Day, where this year’s headline speaker will be Björn Ulvaeus, a founding member of Abba.
Paul led Biz Week for five years and still hosts a highlight in the schedule with his Elevenses events. Kath Lavery then served as chair until she stepped down after the 2023 Biz Week, with Pat Coyle of Rollits LLP taking up the reins.
“We built on YIBC and outlived what they did,” said Paul, as he recalled some of his highlights.
“The IoD came along and put on a fabulous lunch to which I was always privileged to be invited. I got to sit next to Tony Benn. What an interesting, lovely guy. I had a long chat with him.
“Gerald Ratner talked about how you recover from the faux pas of telling people your products are crap! I met Kevin Keegan again. He’s a lovely guy – they say never meet your heroes but he was one I was delighted to meet.
LEGACY: Malcolm Scott during his Humber Bridge campaign
“My favourite event was when we invited people to do a five-minute rant on stage on the Monday. The person with the best rant would get the chance to go on the main stage at our YIBC on the Friday.
“One was about local authorities, another was about females in business but Malcolm Scott won with his rant about the Humber Bridge Trolls, the nasty little monsters who were holding back the economy of the region.
“Malcolm highlighted how ridiculous it was that the Government would put so much money into building it and then charge us so much money to use it that it became counter- productive. It was very clever as you would expect from Malcolm, but he was very nervous presenting it.
“That was when he told me his idea of buying the Humber Bridge. He had worked out he could get a commercial loan. Everybody laughed at him but that campaign got the debt reduced massively. His rant is singularly a piece of legacy.”
Paul revealed that the name came from Tim Sanders, creative director of Yahoo, when he spoke at the first Hull event in 2004.
‘A VERY EXOTIC AMERICAN’: Yahoo’s Tim Sanders at the 2004 event
“He was a very exotic, west coast American who came to promote a book,” said Paul.
“He said we were all biz people and we were having a biz week, and we unashamedly nicked that and kept it!”
Another treasured memory which became a significant legacy was the Hull Icons event, triggered by a meeting with Justine Greening, former Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities.
Paul said: “She’s from a council estate in Rotherham and her passion is social mobility. She came to the conclusion that you are not going to solve the country’s problems with handouts from the public sector. The solutions lay with business and she wanted to get a social mobility pledge going.
“She wanted me to sign up to the pledge, which I really believe in. I persuaded her to come to Biz Week and work on the Hull Icons event around social mobility, getting ten or 12 people together who are key figures in this area and who came from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
BOXING CLEVER: Paul Sewell with Tommy Coyle
Alan Johnson hosted the event which also featured prominent local figures including Charlie Spencer, John Godber, Neil Hudgell, Matt Jukes, Emma Latimer and Tommy Coyle.
Paul said: “We called it ‘The Kid Done Good’ and it was my favourite Biz Week event because it left a legacy. The message was just because you come from a deprived part of the city doesn’t mean you can’t achieve things.”
Elevenses emerged from Covid when Kath was looking for ideas to present online. It’s a series of natters rather than interviews, with audiences – initially online or socially-distanced – enjoying Paul’s informal conversations with a variety of guests.
One highlight came in 2022 when Alaistair Campbell was the guest and the audience included Lord Prescott and Alan Johnson – three major players in helping Labour return election majorities of 179 in 1997, 167 in 2001 and 66 in 2005. But the true stars of Elevenses have been women.
Paul said: “I like putting awesome females in front of the women at Sewell Group to inspire them – Steph McGovern, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Debbie Robinson, the Central England CEO and European Vice President of the Co-op. We’ll be announcing another one soon.
“That Business Week is still going strong after 20 years is as pleasing to me as it is critical to our community and economy. A week of business promoting and celebrating what we do, plus reminding people how vital the wealth creating sector is, still feels as relevant as it did in the beginning. Add the learning, the mingling and the fun and one sees why it has been enduringly successful.”
