Welcome from WCC Joint-Managing Director Monica Fogarty

Hello and welcome to the February edition of Warwickshire Means Business.

We are heading into a very busy period with a lot of excellent events coming up designed to support businesses throughout the county in many sectors.

I am very much looking forward to attending our annual Skills Conference on March 6.  Every year this event brings together businesses and education-providers to talk about how we can all work together to ensure a flow of talented young people into the workforce. This year's event will feature two major announcements from the county council as we step up our efforts to help businesses address the Skills Gap.

Then next day, March 7, Warwickshire Food & Drink 2019 Expo will offer businesses in our wonderfully diverse food and drink sector a great opportunity to make important contacts.

Our rapidly-growing Hospitality Sector will be in the spotlight during a week of events starting on February 27 and then attention will turn to our town centres and high streets when the third Warwickshire Towns Conference takes place at Warwick Racecourse on March 21.

All these events will feature interesting and well-qualified speakers from a broad range of perspectives. Please come along if you can.

One event has already taken place this year, the inaugural Interactive Futures festival in Leamington Spa, and what a success it was - events filled to capacity, visitor-numbers way above those predicted and exhibitors already booking for next year.

The three days were a wonderful endorsement of this region's credentials in the games sector. It was truly a festival of skills and innovation, all laced with good, old Warwickshire hospitality, the importance of which, as Sim Lee points out in his excellent Guest Column, must not be under-estimated.

Also in this edition of Warwickshire Means Business you can catch up with all the latest news-in-brief and upcoming events. We also focus on the first business to benefit from an Apprenticeship Levy transfer - a new source of funding for training in which I am proud to say Warwickshire County Council is ahead of the game.

I hope you enjoy reading this edition - please do join us at one or more of the above events.