Horsham District Council hosted its first Business Leaders Forum event at the Roffey Park Institute on 24 February.
Developed as a result of feedback from the Council’s various visits to local businesses, the event was designed to inform, connect and empower local entrepreneurs and provided the opportunity for them to come together to share ideas, address challenges and drive forward positive change.
Key focusses for the day included local recruitment, staff transport for rural areas and the use of artificial intelligence with expert speakers in each field.
The event brought together key stakeholders and speakers from Crawley and Brinsbury Colleges at Chichester College Group, West Sussex Connect to Work, the National Careers Service, West Sussex, Brighton and Hove Careers Hub, Community Transport Sussex, Metrobus and MapQuest at Best Practice AI.
Some 60 local businesses attended the event including Cripps LLP, Benchmark Capital/Schroders, EVM, Horsham Football Club, Assurity Consulting, Red River Software and Pentagon Plastics.
Horsham District Council Cabinet Member Cllr Colette Blackburn commented: “This was a very inspiring event borne out of the Council’s aim to provide the best possible support to the dynamic business community we are lucky enough to have in Horsham District.
It provided local businesses with the opportunity to collaborate regarding the future economic direction of the District, and to participate in addressing real world operational issues such as Artificial Intelligence, recruitment drives and rural transport.
“Additionally, it brought the chance to look carefully at current and projected key challenges so that our Enterprising Horsham team can provide well targeted backing in the future.
“I look forward to future networking events and keeping up with progress.”
This forum was a pilot event supported by Horsham District Council’s Enterprising Horsham team and Gatwick Diamond Business, with a view to organising up to three events a year in the future at different locations across the Horsham District.