Awards celebrate pace-setting companies

Sponsored and organised by law firm Ward Hadaway, these awards champion and celebrate the businesses blazing a trail when it comes to growing their companies.

The Yorkshire Fastest 50 identifies and highlights the privately-owned, profit-making companies who have seen the biggest annual expansion in their turnover in recent years.

A definitive list of the 50 fastest growing companies in Yorkshire will be published at the start of March. Then later that month, awards will be handed out to the fastest growing small, medium-sized and large businesses at an awards ceremony. One of those three winners will then receive the accolade of being crowned Yorkshire’s overall fastest growing business for 2015.

This is the fifth time that the Yorkshire Fastest 50 has taken place and the event has become a real fixture on the region’s business calendar. Since its inception, the event has been organised and sponsored by UK Top 100 law firm Ward Hadaway, whose own operation in Yorkshire has grown considerably since it opened an office in Leeds in summer 2008.

Ward Hadaway managing partner Jamie Martin said: “The Yorkshire Fastest 50 has been a big success from the very start so we are delighted to be once again joining forces with the Yorkshire Post to launch the 2015 Awards.

“Over the years, the event has demonstrated the resilience, vibrancy and fortitude of Yorkshire’s businesses and 2015 promises to be no exception.

“The Yorkshire Fastest 50 highlights 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. Competition to appear in the final 50 is likely to be fierce and the 2015 winners will have had to put in an exceptional performance to come out on top.

“With talk in political and business circles centring on the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ concept, I am confident that this year’s Yorkshire Fastest 50 will give us ample evidence of the North’s ability to drive growth and achieve economic success.”

The Yorkshire Fastest 50 2015 is being compiled by independent economic researchers at Bradford University School of Management using publicly available data from Companies House.

The data will then be verified before the definitive list is published in the Yorkshire Post at the start of March.

Ward Hadaway, which also has offices in Newcastle and Manchester, has been running a similar awards scheme for companies in the North East of England every year since 1998.

Mr Martin said: “Since the Yorkshire Fastest 50 was started, we have seen some great examples of companies making major strides in growing their businesses, creating jobs and attracting investment into Yorkshire. The companies in last year’s Fastest 50 boosted their combined turnovers by more than £900m in the three years to 2014 – a highly impressive performance when you consider the economic situation during that period. We now look forward to seeing who will be making the headlines in 2015.”