Energising the agenda of economic growth and supporting Solent innovation

Paula Swain, partner at national law firm Shakespeare Martineau and non-executive director at Solent LEP and Solent Freeport, highlights some of the innovations happening in the region that are fuelling national economic growth.

If you read the July edition, you’ll know that I recently joined national law firm Shakespeare Martineau to help open its new Southampton office. While the region might be new to Shakespeare Martineau, it’s been home to me for decades and throughout that time I’ve had the honour of working with some of the most innovative and brilliant people in the region.

Here I showcase just a handful of the many whose hard work, ingenuity and leadership are helping put the Central South firmly on the map.

Healthcare – Professor David Bream, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton

Working alongside clinical and academic colleagues, David’s work looks to improve treatments for patients. Not only does David’s team conduct research and develop innovative technology, but they also work with entrepreneurs and investors to create the companies needed to bring new technologies to market, bringing investment, jobs and economic development to the region.

David is also leading an initiative called the Connected Healthcare Incubator Accelerator (CHIA), coordinating the many first-rate regional resources we already have to create a world-leading healthcare innovation cluster.

Collaboration – Robin Chave, University of Southampton Science Park CEO

Did you know that the science park delivers an estimated £500m GVA to the Central South economy? The mixture of tech start-ups and multinationals that form the park’s innovation ecosystem make it a vibrant and exciting place to work; somewhere biologists and chemists can rub shoulders with engineers and technologists to spark new ideas and collaborations.
The support provided to nascent technology businesses through the catalyst business acceleration programme – of which Robin has been a long-term member of the judging panel – helps business
to grow and prosper, challenging their value propositions and prompting them to address a key requirement of the start-up journey: making sure you don’t just have a solution to real-world problems, but that somebody is prepared to pay you for it.

Public/Private Partnerships – Jane Lamer, Head of Economic Development and Skills, Portsmouth City Council

Every city should have an advocate like Jane. Her team organises inward investment promotion and works with entrepreneurs. The Portsmouth Business Support Service is delivered in partnership with Shaping Portsmouth. If you have experienced the Southsea Food Festival, then you will have benefitted from some of this work; the free to access festival attracted over 47,000 people this year and welcomed over 60 traders. For some such as Spice Island Chilli, the festival has acted as a springboard to success. Having started at the festival, the company is now trading in over 170 stores nationwide.

Jane’s team has also helped put Portsmouth and the Central South region on the global map through their work with UKREiiF and MIPIM, while planned activity with Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, aims to promote business from both sides of the Atlantic.

Closer to home, the council’s master planning work around city centre north will help investment in housing and new business communities as we rethink the role of our high streets.

Change – Rachael Randall, outgoing Chair of the Solent Local Enterprise Partnership and founder of HTP Apprenticeship College

Rachael will become the inaugural Chair of the Solent Growth Partnership Business Representative Board. The Solent Growth Partnership (SGP), which will be replacing the Solent LEP, is the new partnership of the upper tier local authorities of Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight taking on the responsibility for promoting prosperity in their region.

The business representative board will bring together private and public sector representatives to support business growth, develop local skills and innovation, and help to promote investment. The new board will also benefit from some of the non-executive business directors who have supported the outgoing Solent LEP for many years.

Supporting the region

When I qualified as a solicitor my sole focus was on becoming an expert litigator and a trusted advisor to my corporate clients. Now, almost 25 years later, I’ve found that not only am I a leader in a substantial firm, but I also play a part in the development of the region in my role as non-executive director of both the Solent LEP (soon to be SGP) and Solent Freeport.

Why? Because I recognise that I am a stakeholder in a wider societal, environmental, economic, and spiritual world. I have a community, and that community in our Central South has helped to lift me up – through education, social and professional networks and with other support. The health of that community relies heavily on the strength of our economy and it’s important that I give time to the organisations that are at the forefront of that growth.

As a director of the Solent LEP, and working closely with board colleagues from local authorities, the business community and our universities, it was a pleasure to approve and to see the benefits of locally focused investments for and including: the Stubbington bypass, Southampton’s Centenary Quarter, University of Southampton’s Centre for Cancer Immunology, Southampton’s new Horizon Cruise terminal, the University of Portsmouth’s Centre for Enzyme Innovation (helping manage our use of plastics) and a rural employment hub on the Isle of Wight, to name just a few.

As part of the LEP board, I had the opportunity to join a taskforce bidding to win freeport status for the Solent and am now a non-executive director on the board helping to deliver Solent Freeport, including the management of investment funds, project oversight and interactions with Government and local partners.

I’ve also proudly served on the South-East board for Business in the Community (BITC). BITC inspires, engages and challenges purposeful leaders to take practical action to mobilise their collective strength as a force for good in society, an attitude shared by my firm, Shakespeare Martineau.

Committed to changing business for good, Shakespeare Martineau is a full-service law firm for life and business, supporting clients to unlock their potential.

Working with organisations of all sizes, we deliver a broad range of specialist legal services, and our 1,200-strong team has expertise across multiple areas, including but not limited to: energy, education, banking and finance, healthcare, family business, housing, charities and private client matters.

The names in this article are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to those championing the region’s cause – if this has inspired you, please get in touch: [email protected]