Lupton hails successful year for pro.manchester

PAUL Lupton has hailed a “transformational” year for pro.manchester, the professional services organisation he has chaired for the last 12 months.

Addressing last night’s annual dinner at the Hilton Hotel, Mr Lupton a corporate finance partner at Deloitte, said the organisation had grown its membership by 13% to 345 in the year to the end of April, despite an increase in fees – to help the it mitigate the loss of more than £180,000 in funding from the North West Development Agency.

He praised a number of successful events, the launch of a number of new sector clusters, the SME Club in partnership with Royal Bank of Scotland – and an “excellent bid” led by pro.manchester for the Green Investment Bank.

Rating the efforts as a B+, because he says he “never gives an A”, he said the organisation was benefiting from the “exceptional vision and leadership” of chief executive John Ashcroft.

He said: “We have launched a number of new sector groups to meet the demand of the membership and the market, including creative and digital, public sector, energy and low carbon, healthcare and advnaced manufacturing.

“We organised 130 events last year, almost three per week, with over 7,000 people attending the programme.”

The SME Club, he said, was the most significant achievement of 2011-12 as it is supporting small businesses in the region and therefore benefiting the economy, and also boosting pro.manchester’s resources via the RBS tie-up.

“At a time when the economic backdrop is so challenging, it is essential that we all do as much as we can to nurture smaller businesses because as they develop and thrive, they become regular buyers of our services.

“Secondly the link with the Royal Bank of Scotland provides significant sponsorship support to our organisation.”

Mr Lupton, who will be succeeded in June by his deputy, Cobbetts’ parther Paul Johnson, said he was sure that his leadership, in tandem with John Ashcroft, that “pro-manchester will continue to hold a pivotal role in the development of Manchester.”

More than 450 members and guests at the event were entertained by the comedian and satirist Marcus Brigstocke.