Malaysia, Singapore and Australia
The team set-up 62 one-to-one meetings and hosted eight events and key speaking opportunities in Malaysia, Singapore and Australia with a focus on continuing high-level pipeline conversations that were started during the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games through the Business and Tourism Programme.
During the 10-day visit the team engaged with 217 leads and have 15 high-potential investment prospects identifed of the back of this engagement. A number of key relationships have been advanced with these companies, which can now be leveraged to ensure that West Midlands assets and R&D capability receives significant consideration as they look to scale delivery in the UK.
Engagements with organisations such as Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation; Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers; Singapore Business Federation; Enterprise Singapore; Australian-British Chamber of Commerce; and, Brisbane City Council, provided the team with an important opportunity to build and reinforce relationships with public bodies at a city and state level with a future-focused agenda working towards opportunities around 2026 Commonwealth Games and 2032 Olympics.
The team will now continue its follow-up 'back at base'.
USA (New York City)
The USA mission was soley taken up by Tracey Davenport, Sector Lead - Business, Professional and Financial Services and Head of Commercial Partnerships at WMGC, attending a range of meetings while in New York City in early February.
He met with Loren Nadres, Director of Economic Development at Stamford CT to discuss the similarities between the Connecticut region and the West Midlands across a number of key sectors (Creative, Digital & Tech, BPFS) and was supported by Fiona Macleod, Head of East Coast, Department for Business and Trade, and Mariana Cubillos US FinTech lead, Department for Business and Trade.
Tracey also gave an update to the entire Department for Business and Trade East Coast team highlighting the success of the Commonwealth Games and growing investment opportunities across the region including some of the new focus areas for WMGC coming out from the Government’s Deeper Devolution Deal signed in March.
He also attended New York City FinTech Innovation and Investor events at Barclays Rise in the City.
We would like to thank WMGC Partner Squire Patton Boggs for providing meeting room space in their Manhattan office to conduct investor meetings for businesses looking to set up in the West Midlands.