News Story

Fifty prominent business leaders from some of Birmingham’s top firms are this week representing the city at the Gateway to India convention in Delhi where a trade mission is being led by Birmingham Forward.

Birmingham has broken London’s monopoly on providing professional services to support Sharia finance and is well ahead of the regional pack.   So says UKTI’s Steve Cunnane (regional national trade advisor) who spoke at a Birmingham Forward event (16 September 2009).  Birmingham Forward – the voice of the city’s professional services firms -  is leading a trade delegation to the Islamic Finance Conference in Bahrain in December (6th -8th).

Richard Brennan, chief executive of Birmingham Forward, explains why the city’s professionals believe High Speed Two (HS2) is worth the money and the wait:

HS2 is the biggest thinking we’ve had since the vision for the motorway network in the war-weary 1940s.  The collective verdict by the Birmingham Forward membership is that HS2’s a big idea with sound logic behind it.  Let me reflect the, more or less, unanimous view of the membership that we should each do all do we can to secure a direct line to Birmingham.

Birmingham Forward – the voice of the city’s business and professional community – has awarded its PR contract to boutique, Jewellery Quarter consultancy Kinetic Communications after a four-way pitch.

“There are 320,000 professionals in the city across every sector and discipline,” said Richard Brennan, Birmingham Forward chief executive, “but we currently only reach around 20% of them.

Birmingham Forward Chief Executive Richard Brennan has written to Marc Reeves, the Editor of the Birmingham Post in response to his announcement that the Post is reviewing two options for its future: a reduced daily paper or a weekly publication. The letter includes feedback from the Birmingham Forward membership.

Click here to view the letter.

As the recession continues to impact on business, Birmingham Forward is continuing with their aim to provide a wide range of commentary and analysis from across the economic spectrum.

As a result the organisation’s next speaker lunch taking place at the Bank Restaurant on Thursday, August 20th, will focus on the state of the economy from the perspective of the Bank of England. The guest speaker will be Rob Elder, Manager of the Conjunctural Assessment and Projections Division and one of the Bank’s key economists.

Amanda Porter, a Senior Solicitor at Birmingham law firm Mills & Reeve, took up the role as Chairman of Birmingham Future on 30th July at the organisation’s Annual General Meeting, which took place at Eleven Brindleyplace. Amanda takes over from Headline Communication’s Account Director, Matt Taylor.

The recession has hit the professional and financial services sector hard. Redundancies are occurring in every sector.

One of the most stressful elements facing those who lose their jobs is maintaining their connection and engagement with colleagues and to be able to keep connected to the specific sector of business in which they worked.

Graduates are facing a difficult time in securing jobs during the recession so it became great news to twenty one year old Emily Williams when she was announced this week as Birmingham Future’s fourth Graduate Apprentice.

This year’s successful candidate overcame a field of seventy other graduates all hoping to be given the unique opportunity to experience three diverse sixteen week placements within the city’s professional sector.