Radio Design’s Eric Hawthorn [the “Founding Founding Patron”] Helps Launch ExportExchange, a Peer-to-Peer Business Initiative for Yorkshire SMEs

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Businesses in the Leeds City Region are to benefit from a unique regional initiative aimed at boosting international trade, it has been announced today in Leeds. ExportExchange is an online and offline network which aims to help businesses within the city region and beyond to increase exports, grow revenues and create employment.

The ExportExchange programme is backed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and delivered by the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP), the Department for International Trade (DIT), and a number of private sector media, marketing and export specialists. The initiative was launched by Roger Marsh OBE, chair of the LEP, and Marian Sudbury, director of the Northern Powerhouse for DIT, in Leeds on 30 June at AQL’s Salem Chapel building in the Holbeck area of the city.

The launch event saw a host of invited guests from businesses in the Leeds City Region that are already successfully exporting come together as ‘patrons’ to back a programme that will pool their expertise and know-how to help Yorkshire firms that want to develop their overseas trade.

Marsh said: “The need for businesses to seek more diversified global growth has never been greater. A recent HMRC report found that in the year to March 2017, Yorkshire and the Humber saw a 7.6 per cent increase in the value of exports, so we know the ability to achieve this exists. We challenged the business community to mobilise expertise within the region to help a new generation of would-be exporters and, with the collaboration of over 50 new patrons from some of the region’s most successful exporters, we’ve built a unique support network that is 100 per cent free to use.”

Under the ExportExchange programme, the patrons, all experienced exporters and business leaders from across the Leeds City Region – which includes Skipton and Harrogate in the north, Barnsley in the south, and York – will share their expertise on every aspect of exporting and growth with fledgling SME exporters…