Yorkshire Fastest 50 awards return for 2019

Over the last eight years, The Yorkshire Post and the top 100 law firm Ward Hadaway have joined forces to organise the Yorkshire Fastest 50, which honours the innovative and dynamic entrepreneurs who are bringing jobs and investment to our region.

The event has attracted a host of famous speakers, including the Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer, who spoke at last year’s awards. Previous winners of the Fastest 50 have gone on to achieve success at home and abroad.

Three fast-growing businesses are celebrating continued growth and success since winning the 2018 Ward Hadaway Fastest 50 Awards. Leeds-based Pure Retirement took home awards for the Fastest Growing Large Business and Overall Fastest Growing Business at the 2018 event.

Paul Carter, the CEO of Pure Retirement, said: “Winning as prestigious an accolade as Fastest Growing Business in the Yorkshire Fastest 50 has allowed us to stand out from our competitors in an increasingly competitive marketplace and has acted as a celebration of the way we conduct business.

“It’s allowed our workforce to see that the great work they do on a daily basis is appreciated not only by the rest of the company, or even the wider industry in which we operate, but across the wider region.”

Founded in 2011, Sheffield-based tech firm Azzure IT helps organisations across the UK to improve their productivity through smart business applications. The company has achieved significant growth over the years and now employs more than 70 people.

The company is ranked 29th in the Northern Tech 100 league, has been listed in the Deloitte Tech Fast500 EMEA over the past three years. The company was included in the 2018 Financial Times Future 100 UK List of fast growing companies in the UK.

Craig Such, managing director of Azzure IT, said: “Winning the Fastest Growing Small Business Award in last year’s Ward Hadaway Fastest 50 awards has been great recognition of the hard work and impressive results our team has produced, and the acknowledgement of this was a massive boost to company morale.

“It has already gained us more credibility among both our existing customers, and prospective customers, showing that Azzure IT is a business that is going places and has been formally established as a fast growing business amongst its peers.”

Production Park based in South Kirkby, designs and builds stages for some of the biggest names in the music industry,

It won last year’s Fastest Growing Medium-Sized Business at the Yorkshire Fastest 50 Awards in March.

The company also collected a trio of other awards in just one week last year.

John Murray, executive partner of Ward Hadaway’s Leeds office, said: “It’s really exciting to see what the winners of our annual Yorkshire Fastest 50 Awards bring to our local economy. I applaud them for what they’ve achieved and look forward to seeing how they get on in the years to come.”

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

Independent analysts will create a list of the 50 fastest-growing companies in Yorkshire which will be published in March.

Then on March 22 at an event in Aspire in Leeds, awards will be handed out to the fastest-growing small, medium-sized and large businesses.

One of those three winners will then be crowned as the overall fastest growing business for 2019.