Shaping the Future 2026 Agenda
On Monday 16th March - Opened the festival at St Giles Church and explored the themes of Entrepreneurship and Employment. The church courtyard was full of local business exhibitors and inside the church we heard from fabulous speakers such as Dr James Bannerman, the only man in the world with a PHD in Lateral thinking, David Beech, CEO of Knights Solicitors, Alastair Machin of Chaffinch and Ravenscliffe and Steve Timmis of Sempar accounts, plus we had fantastic breakout sessions exploring Leadership for Growing Businesses, Getting Graduate Placements and Wellbeing in the Workplace
On Tuesday 17th March- At Keele University's Denise Coates Foundation Building looking at Innovation and Sustainability. We hosted a panel chaired by Laura Rhodes the Universities Head of Net Zero and featured Raphael Hirschi the Head of the Digital Society Institute, Diane Roberts of Staffordshire Business and Environment Network and Gemma Thomas, Founder of Brilliant Bamboo. We also explored cyber security with Jonathan Lawton of Hixon group, AI with Usman Shah of Absorbed group amongst others and had a whole range of innovative businesses exhibiting too.
On Wednesday 18th March - Back into the town centre and took over Lymelight Boulevard. Wednesday we explored Business and Networking Day at The Lanes and NuL's newest cocktail lounge, The Boulevard. We got digital consultations with Wavemaker, fabulous speakers including Rachel Jackson, winner of Networker of the Year at the 2025 Business Success Recognition Awards, Peter the Speaker who won investment for his pet inventions on Dragon’s Den, and was named by the BBC as “The Entrepreneur who Floored the Dragons with his Confident Pitch”, we also hosted some fabulous practical workshops too.
On Thursday 19th March - Back at St Giles Church and thanks to the incredible attendance last year, we had to relocate our Women in Business Day to a bigger venue. It was a hall full of exhibitions by local female led SME”s and some of the regions most prominent business leaders speaking too such as, Carol Shannahan co-owner of Port Vale, Hannah Ault CEO at Valentines Clays, Ramona Hirschi Deputy President of Staffordshire Chambers and Josie Vujcic owner of Nellys Nest.
On Friday 20th March - We explored Creative and Digital Industries Day, we had exciting e-gaming Demo’s with the team at Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group and some pop-up performances throughout the day. We also hosted fabulous panels with Wavemaker and Dave Edwards from University of Staffordshire’s Gaming Department, Clare Wood Artistic Director of British Ceramics Biennial and Sud Basu, who’s written the national strategy for outdoor arts participating in a lively panel discussion and Emma Ritson introducing us all to the National Literacy Trusts, Year of Literacy initiative.
The team behind the event
Working together for the improvement, collaboration and innovation of the Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council
