Honours for fastest growing firms

The Yorkshire Fastest 50 Awards, which are organised by law firm Ward Hadaway and supported by The Yorkshire Post, honour the entrepreneurs who are helping to bring jobs and investment to God’s Own County. More than 200 guests will gather at Aspire in Leeds to find out the identities of Yorkshire’s pace-setting privately-owned companies.

Awards will be handed out this lunchtime to the fastest growing small, medium and large companies in the region. An overall award will also be handed to Yorkshire’s fastest growing company of the year. Steph McGovern of BBC Breakfast will give the keynote speech at the event and announce the winners and runners-up in each category while Greg Wright, Deputy Business Editor of The Yorkshire Post, will introduce the proceedings at Aspire Leeds.

Philip Jordan, partner in the commercial team at Ward Hadaway’s Leeds office, will talk about the firm’s involvement in the awards.

Jamie Martin, managing partner at Ward Hadaway, said: “Since 2011, the Yorkshire Fastest 50 Awards have helped to highlight and celebrate the tremendous work being carried out by companies right across the region. Competition to make it into the rankings for this year’s Yorkshire Fastest 50 has been particularly intense so the winners and runners-up unveiled at the awards ceremony today will have really earned their plaudits.

“We are all looking forward to what promises to be a memorable occasion for everyone involved.”

The Yorkshire Fastest 50 rewards privately-owned profit-making companies and organisations which have shown the strongest sales growth over recent years.

In-depth research carried out by independent economic experts at Bradford University School of Management has been used to put together the Yorkshire Fastest 50 2015.

Figures from a company’s previous three years of accounts are analysed and then an average annualised growth figure produced for each of the companies. To be eligible, companies need to be privately owned rather than publicly listed. Businesses must also be locally owned in Yorkshire or, for foreign-owned businesses, have local control.

Companies are selected for inclusion based on accounts sent to Companies House rather than by applying to be on the list.

A full report on the awards, together with analysis and feature articles, will appear in a special supplement celebrating the event in The Yorkshire Post on Tuesda March 24.