International Business Convention guests to get a touch of Frost

The 71-year-old journalist will end the morning session at Bridlington and then travel by helicopter to Harrogate to close the annual convention, which usually attracts more than 1,000 businessmen and women from across Yorkshire.

Mike Firth, the event organiser, said: "Sir David is a man who has interviewed some of the most influential and powerful people in the world and without exception he has managed to get beneath the public face of those people to find out what really makes them tick. The stories he has to tell are certainly going to be entertaining but I am confident they will also be equally inspirational for the delegates."

Sir David joins speakers including actor and adventurer Brian Blessed, lingerie entrepreneur Michelle Mone, business author Rene Carayol, online retailer Brian Kalma and Peter Burkill, the pilot who successfully brought down his Boeing 777 when both engines failed two miles from Heathrow Airport.

YIBC takes place after a series of events in the east of the region in Humber Business Week.

Today sees the start of Chamber Expo 2010, the biggest event in the schedule, which takes place today and tomorrow in Hull.

More than 100 businesses will be exhibiting at the Bonus Arena with up to 3,000 people expected to visit.

Graham Stuart, the MP for Beverley and Holderness, will open the event at noon and then deliver a speech over lunch at the KC Stadium about the outlook for business under the new coalition government.

Leeds Business Week preceded YIBC in recent years, but was cancelled this year after organisers decided on a new, year-long format for networking events.

Deborah Green, chief executive of Marketing Leeds, said: "To get everybody to come out two or three times in the same week in the current economic climate is just not feasible."