Tees Business LIVE: May 2025
Why unity is crucial for Tees businesses to thrive
EVENTS
INWARD INVESTMENT
Tees Business LIVE: May 2025
MIDDLESBROUGH TOWN HALL
IN ASSOCIATION WITH WOMBLE BOND DICKINSON
PICTURES: CHRIS BOOTH
Panel – Tees Business LIVE delegates heard from Nova Pangaea Technologies’ Gary Bowdler, Womble Bond Dickinson’ s Peter Snaith, SeAH Wind’ s David Jack and Etc.’ s Grant Glendinning.
Why unity is crucial for Tees businesses to thrive
united front is vital to continue
A enticing groundbreaking schemes and large-scale investment to Teesside, the latest Tees Business LIVE event heard.
Discussing the topic“ Beyond the Boom – Shaping Teesside’ s next wave of job investment”, a four-strong panel of leading business figures was asked how sustained economic growth for Teesside could be achieved.
And during the discussion, two common themes emerged – the need for stability and the need for the area to talk with one voice.
David Jack, commercial director of South Korean wind turbine giant SeAH Wind, said stability was key to the success of its huge monopile factory being built on the Teesworks site.
He told the meeting:“ For SeAH, it’ s about stability first – we’ ll get our factory up and running and continue doing the good things we’ re doing.
“ We’ ll iron out the mistakes – because we are going to make some – and we then become an anchor within the region.
“ That anchor then becomes an ecosystem that creates more opportunities and that, in turn, becomes a beacon for other companies to say.‘ Look, it can be done’.”
David said research and development is just one area SeAH would like to focus on“ by using our technology and developing it further with local companies”.
But he added:“ To do that, we need a strong pipeline of policies that will allow
10 | Tees Business offshore wind development to continue and show that the UK is on the right track.
“ We’ re going to work together nationally to make offshore wind work – it’ s not just a‘ one region’ thing.
“ Hopefully, if I’ m talking to you again in a few years, we’ ll be talking about 750 jobs supporting another 400 or 500 jobs behind that and other jobs through the local supply chain.”
CEO of the Education Training Collective – covering local training and education providers – Grant Glendinning, felt the area is continuing to take big strides but needs collaboration between key players.
Citing the Tees Maritime Cluster as a good example of collaboration with“ fantastic potential”, he said:“ What we need is politicians and business leaders to work together.
“ We’ re not perfect – there’ ve been some contentious things that have happened, but that’ s inevitable.
“ There will be some political in-fighting, but let’ s try to mitigate it because it can be destabilising for investment opportunities.”
Gary Bowdler, finance director of Wilton-based Nova Pangaea Technologies, felt it was important for Teesside to speak up as one voice.
He said:“ We’ ve got to show what Teesside is about – nobody wants to be linked with anything where there’ s poor governance. We’ ve got to be seen as one and pushing one message.
“ Why pick Teesside over somewhere else? If we don’ t make that clear, we run
the risk of being left behind because if there’ s another area trying to peddle the same things but they’ re better at communicating it, that’ s where people are going to go.
“ Investors want to minimise risk. When we at Nova Pangaea are trying to raise investment, people ask,‘ Where are you going to be based and what are the benefits?’
“ We have to sell that to them, so there is a lot of collaboration needed between everybody.”
And when asked if negative news headlines and the political scrutiny around developments such as Teesworks could deter future investors, Peter Snaith, of event sponsor Womble Bond Dickinson, endorsed the importance of“ project over politics”.
He said:“ Investors will look for a low-risk investment. And many of the investors we’ re talking about aren’ t local investors – they’ re not already sold on the region, so we need to convince them this is the place to be.
“ Negative news does hurt us – some of what we hear will be true and some won’ t be, but the more we perpetuate it, the more we do ourselves harm.”
Organised by Tees Business in association with Womble Bond Dickinson, the event was held in Middlesbrough Town Hall’ s impressive Old Courtroom and saw delegates from across a range of business sectors gather for the panel discussion and networking.
Series associate sponsor for the 2025 Tees Business LIVE programme is North East Chamber of Commerce.