EVENTS
Tees Business LIVE: May 20, 2026
CRATHORNE HALL, YARM
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH CRATHORNE HALL
Panellists- the May Tees Business LIVE featured( from left) Eastgate Engineering commercial director Anthony Fiske, Muckle LLP’ s Leah Duffield, The Etc CEO Grant Glendinning and AV Dawson group MD Charlie Nettle.
FUTURE PROOFING
Tees Business LIVE panellists urge firms to‘ focus on young people’
PICTURES: TOM BANKS
Supporting young people is key if Teesside businesses are to continue prospering together. That was a key message to come from the May Tees Business LIVE event, which saw around 90 guests gather at Crathorne Hall for lunchtime networking and a panel discussion.
Organised by Tees Business in partnership with Crathorne Hall, a fourstrong panel of business leaders discussed“ The Power of Teesside Together” – how collaboration and community spirit are the competitive edges for forward-thinking businesses.
And when asked if there was one major mission Teesside’ s business community should unite behind over the next five years, supporting our young people was a recurring theme.
Head of private clients and lead on Teesside for law firm Muckle LLP, Leah Duffield, told the audience:“ The focus for me would have to be on our young people.
“ We know that we have a skills gap and we know we have a low percentage of young adults going into further education and becoming skilled. We have this wonderful region and are very proud of where we come from and what we’ re able to offer. But we have too many children in poverty and that has a knock-on effect for everything that we do.
“ Those children in poverty aren’ t accessing the education they need and they’ re not seeing the opportunity this region offers them.
“ If you tackle child poverty and get them into education, you empower them – you give them confidence to grow, learn and be the best version of themselves.
“ That will then help all our businesses thrive because we’ ll have skilled, confident and well-rounded young adults moving into our businesses that really have pride in their region and want to stay here.”
AV Dawson group managing director Charlie Nettle said he knew of one young person who applied for 100 apprenticeships but didn’ t get one. Now, however, having made a connection through someone at AV Dawson, he said:“ He’ s got a job, he’ s all around the country and he’ s away. He’ s got that start in life and he’ ll do fine.”
Charlie said:“ I think businesses need to do more to connect up our resources and show young people those opportunities, all the different roles.
“ We’ ve got over 100 different jobs just in our business. You don’ t have to drive a truck, ship or train – there’ s loads of different roles.”
Anthony Fiske, commercial director of Eastgate Engineering – named Business of the Year at the 2026 Tees Business Awards – told the meeting:“ To be the best region, we need to develop, retain and attract talent.
“ We don’ t want people moving out of the region- we want people to stay, or
those who are out of the region to come back and grow their own businesses and talent.
“ We like to talk about Teesside’ s heritage but what we don’ t talk about enough is what we want to do in the future- what we’ re going to do to be able to give young people the opportunities.”
And CEO of The Education Training Collective, Grant Glendinning, agreed that helping young people face modern-day challenges was paramount.
He said:“ Young people are the future. They’ re facing much more challenging environments and futures than any of us in this room face.
“ The North East Chamber of Commerce will be putting out the Local Skills Improvement Plan in the summer, I believe, and having had some kind of discussion about the things that’ s going to contain, one of the messages that comes through really strongly is creating opportunities.“ There’ s a call to action in that plan about creating opportunities, and so that would be something I think everyone in this room could think about rallying behind over the next five years.”
Tees Business LIVE events are organised by Tees Business in partnership with series associate North East Chamber of Commerce.
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