LEP seeks talented business leaders for specialist panels

23.04.14

The Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) is seeking talented business leaders for its three private sector panels, responsible for overseeing key strategic work and projects that will deliver jobs and economic growth.

Having recently secured a £1bn deal with government – the largest settlement allocated to any LEP in the country – and with £340m EU funding to invest over the next six years, panel members will play a leading role in contributing to the LEP’s overall goals of growing the City Region economy by a quarter and creating 62,000 jobs by 2021.

Opportunities are available on the LEP’s Business Innovation and Growth, Employment and Skills and Green Economy panels.

LEP Chair Roger Marsh said:

“With growth firmly back on the agenda in Leeds City Region, now is a critical time for the LEP and our economy. We have shown we can deliver with relatively modest resources; now, with significant public money at our disposal, we can prove we can deliver at scale and make a real and sustained difference to the City Region’s – and the nation’s – prosperity.

“We need exceptional business leaders from across our diverse business community to come forward and help us unlock the City Region’s growth potential, creating thousands of new jobs and a brighter future for our young people.”

Members of the LEP’s Business Innovation and Growth Panel will have the opportunity to shape projects and programmes to support growing businesses in the City Region, including measures to increase the number of companies exporting, boost innovation, attract a greater share of inward investment to the City Region, and provide coherent business support and funding to smaller firms.

The Employment and Skills Panel will drive the LEP’s efforts to develop a flexible, skilled workforce and create more, better quality jobs for local people. Projects currently in the pipeline include a £17.5m Skills Fund to help companies in key sectors invest in bespoke training, and the delivery of a £74m Skills Capital Programme to invest in improved college facilities across the City Region.

The Green Economy Panel, meanwhile, is overseeing the creation of an Energy Hub to channel investment into new energy infrastructure that will create jobs and lower carbon emissions, and a business support programme to help small businesses become more productive by reducing their energy costs, among other initiatives to fulfil the LEP’s overall ambition of a resource smart City Region.

Panel members will be appointed for two years initially on a pro bono basis. The closing date for applications is 22 October. To apply or for more information visit www.leedscityregion.gov.uk/LEPrecruits