Rising stars will shine at Yorkshire Fastest 50 awards

Sponsored and organised by law firm Ward Hadaway and The Yorkshire Post, the awards champion and celebrate entrepreneurs across the region who are really blazing a trail when it comes to growing their companies.

By analysing company financial figures, the Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 identifies the privately-owned, profit-making companies who have seen the biggest annual expansion in their turnover in recent years.

This process will create a definitive list of the 50 fastest growing companies in Yorkshire which will be published at the end of next month.

Then, in March at a special event, awards will be handed out to the fastest growing small, medium-sized and large businesses, for companies with annual turnover of between £1m and £7.5m, between £7.5m and £15m and turnover of more than £15m respectively. One of those three winners will then receive the accolade of being crowned Yorkshire’s overall fastest growing business for 2017.

This is the seventh time that the Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 has taken place, and the event has become a fixture in the region’s business calendar.

Since its inception, the event has been organised and sponsored by the UK Top 100 law firm Ward Hadaway, which has expanded considerably since coming to Yorkshire in 2008.

Last autumn, the firm’s Leeds operation moved to offices at 5 Wellington Place, in response to Ward Hadaway’s expanding Yorkshire client base and its growing workforce in Leeds.

Harmajinder Hayre, executive partner for Ward Hadaway’s Leeds office, said: “When we started the Yorkshire Fastest 50, we wanted it to send a message about the capability, resilience and strength of the region’s business community and to emphasise our commitment to Yorkshire.

“It has had a fantastic reception since day one so we are delighted to be once again joining forces with The Yorkshire Post to launch the 2017 Awards.

“It is the vision, determination and considerable ability of businesses such as those found in the Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 which has, in many ways, been the driving force of our own growth in the region, reinforced by our move to Wellington Place last year.

“The event does a terrific job of highlighting and celebrating the ambitious, high-achieving companies who do the region and the country proud and we are looking forward to seeing which businesses and which sectors have prospered most in recent years.

“We can expect competition to appear in the final 50 for 2017 to be as tough as ever, and the eventual award winners for this year will have had to register truly exceptional performances to emerge victorious.”

Firms on this year’s list will be hoping to emulate the success of ESP Systex, which received the award for the overall fastest growing business at the 2016 awards.

The Yorkshire Fastest 50 2017 is compiled by independent economic researchers using publicly available financial data from Companies House.

The data is then verified before the definitive list is published in The Yorkshire Post at the end of February.

Greg Wright, deputy business editor of The Yorkshire Post, will introduce the Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 Awards ceremony in March, where the winners from the final 50 will be revealed.

He said: “The Yorkshire Post has a proud history of banging the drum for the region’s businesses and the Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 is a terrific way to do just that.

“By focusing on sustained financial success, the award scheme provides a focal point for our region’s businesses to demonstrate the qualities which make them not just successes in their own right but world-class companies.

“Ward Hadaway’s role in backing and organising the Yorkshire Fastest 50 right from the very start has been essential and we are grateful for their continuing support in 2017.”

Over the last seven years, the Yorkshire Fastest 50 awards have attracted some of the biggest names in business and politics.

In 2014, the keynote speaker was Ed Balls, who was Labour’s Shadow Chancellor at the time.

Jamie Martin, the managing partner at Ward Hadaway, said: “As a Northern law firm for national business, we see at first hand the superb work being done by companies across Yorkshire, day in and day out, and the Ward Hadaway Yorkshire Fastest 50 is a great way to highlight that work.

“These are the companies attracting investment, creating jobs and prosperity and driving the economy forward as we face up to the challenges of the post-Brexit future.”