PRESS RELEASE
19 July 2005

East of England firms lead the UK says Sir John Harvey-Jones

Legendary Troubleshooter Sir John Harvey-Jones urged the region’s business leaders to speed ahead with change at a major event for the East of England on Monday 18 July.

An audience of more than 400 business leaders at the Ideas Talk, an event organised by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), heard Sir John’s diagnosis of the region’s potential.

“Anything you do or make that has not been developed or changed in the last two years is a potentially fatal weakness. You have to be continuously alert to changes being introduced by your worldwide competitors,” said Sir John.

“I cannot emphasise enough that there's real urgency about this.  It is all about speed. You must never relax.  Business is a high pressure, constantly accelerating and ever more demanding game.

“If you are entrenched in your chosen niche, you must have mark two ready to put into the market place; you must have mark three in your ideas bag, and mark four should be the sort of thing you'll be talking about in the pub tonight.”

Sir John is a former Chairman of ICI and for three years' running was voted Britain's Most Impressive Industrialist. Under his leadership ICI was transformed into one of the world's top companies in just 18 months. He was ranked at number two in the 2002 Business Hall of Fame, a roll call of the all-time favourite business leaders based on a survey of CEOs.

In his BBC TV programme, Sir John helped to fundamentally change attitudes to doing business, shaking up firms that had gone flat and demonstrating to a new generation of entrepreneurs how rewarding starting a business could be.

Sir John lived in the East of England during his time as chairman at ICI and commented on his belief in its qualities as the “ideas region”.

“I've watched with great pleasure to see the environment change more and more in favour of this area. Today, I think you are probably the top region in the country in terms of the opportunity for taking advantage of the enormous changes that are unfolding,” he said.

“I know the East of England is very largely an area of small companies. Be thankful. The future lies in small companies with vast ambitions taking determined action rather than the status quo.”

The Ideas Talk event, held at the Tattersalls Parade Ring in Newmarket, is the third in the series. Previous events have involved Edward de Bono and P-Y Gerbeau.

The next major event planned by EEDA is a full day of workshops, talks and "brief encounters", Destination Growth, with Gordon Ramsay, Edward de Bono, John Timpson and a host of experts and entrepreneurs. The event is free for senior business people in the region, and registration and details of the programme are available at www.eeda.org.uk/destinationgrowth.