The Business Of Yorkshire Conference: Our Investing in Leadership panellists
The Business of Yorkshire Conference returns on Thursday, November 28th with its usual mix of insightful discussions and networking opportunities.
Many of the region’s leading business figures will be speaking while thebusinessdesk.com event is split into three segments – business investment, people investment and regional investment. To book your ticket click here.
A big part of what delegates will enjoy are five 30-minute discussion panels, each one covering a different key topic.
Our second panel is on leadership (11.55am), which is key to delivering on the ambitions for individual businesses and for the whole region. Developing leaders who can achieve this, with vision and energy and through collaboration and partnership, will have significant and long-lasting effects that will be felt far beyond the impact of the individual.
We have four of the region’s leading lights in this field and below we profile our panellists.
Investing in Leadership panel
Gemma Smith, Strata
As the CEO of Yorkshire based Strata, Gemma leads strategy, processes and communications across the growing business. She is driven by making a difference to people’s lives and forging emotional connections between the brand and its customers. Gemma (pictured above) was delighted to be awarded the Company Leader of the Year at the Northern Leadership Awards in 2022.
She has worked for Strata since 2003, starting out as the marketing manager, becoming a director in 2014 and then managing director five years later. She moved into her current position in July last year.
Nick Glynne, Buy It Direct
Nick Glynne is the founder and CEO of Buy It Direct, which is one of the largest online retailers in the UK.
Founded in Huddersfield in 1999, it has grown into a £450m operation, selling IT, kitchen appliances, bathrooms, furniture and hot tubs. Some of his brands include Laptops Direct, Appliances Direct, Better Bathrooms and Outdoor Living.
He has also recently created a TV recycling business and a baby products sourcing operation called Babyway.
Nicky Chance-Thompson, The Piece Hall Trust
CEO of The Piece Hall Trust, Nicky Chance-Thompson MBE is the proud ‘Chief Caretaker’ of The Piece Hall in Halifax, overseeing the Trust’s vision to make this iconic building a world class visitor destination using heritage, trade and culture as the currency of the future – preserving this precious community asset for generations to come. She is also Deputy Mayor of Mayor Tracy Brabin’s Culture Committee and the Deputy Lieutenant of West Yorkshire.
Dr Jonathan Straight, Planet Straight Advisory
Jonathan is an award-winning, purposeful, creative entrepreneur best known for founding the AIM-listed Straight plc (STT), the UK’s leading supplier of waste and recycling containers. He headed the business for 21 years before exiting in 2014. Since then, he has assisted other organisations in being their best. He is currently a board advisor to Surplus Group Limited, tackling the problem of surplus and waste food, and is a member of the British Library Advisory Council. He is also chair of international development charity WasteAid, vice chair of creativity in education charity We Are IVE, and is a director of the Leeds literary festival, Milim.
Passionate about entrepreneurship, he is an enterprise ambassador at the Leeds University Business School, an entrepreneur in residence for Connect Yorkshire, and an associate director at Leeds Beckett University. Jonathan is a mentor to – and investor in – various tech-for-good start-ups, where he holds non-executive posts.
He is also a published and exhibited award-winning photographer, specialising in street, reportage, and portrait genres, working predominantly in black and white. In 2022, he won the prestigious Portrait of Britain competition. He has been an occasional presenter on local television and is currently working on a memoir.
