A mentoring scheme to help small-to-medium-sized businesses grow is being launched in the South West.
Mentoring for Growth is being run by the West of England Combined Authority (Weca) and not-for-profit business performance organisation Be the Business.
The programme is designed to connect the leaders of large companies with the directors of smaller businesses in a bid to help them boost productivity through sharing ideas, knowledge, expertise and experience.
The SMEs taking part need to have a minimum of 10 employees and a turnover of £2million.
The programme is new to the West of England but has already been operating in other parts of England, matching SMEs with mentors from businesses including GSK, Amazon and the John Lewis Partnership.
West of England Mayor Tim Bowles, said: “Mentoring for Growth is a fantastic new collaboration that will help small and medium-sized businesses in our region to grow.
"Supporting our businesses to improve their productivity is one of the key priorities set out in our Local Industrial Strategy, which we launched with partners and government in the summer.”
Professor Steve West, chair of the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership, added: “This is an important partnership that will help us work with our businesses tackle the productivity challenge.
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"Through our Local Industrial Strategy, we are committed to working with our partners to provide businesses with the space, networks and skills they need to boost productivity, grow and thrive.”
Weca is responsible for identifying SMEs which could benefit from the programme and then matching them with mentors – selected by Be the Business – from some of the region’s most productive companies.
Mentoring for Growth is available to businesses in Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset council areas.
For more information, email btbmentoring@growthco.uk.