Ex-NWDA boss lands city region role
Mark Hughes, the last chief executive of the North West Development Agency, will become the first chief executive of a new economic advisory organisation in Greater Manchester.
The new organisation, working name Greater Manchester Growth Company, will have a hand in steering the work of inward investment agency, MIDAS; trade and investment services, including UKTI; the Business Growth Hub and Finance for Business.
Hughes took up his position on Monday and will report to joint chairmen Ian Stewart, city mayor of Salford, representing the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Michael Oglesby, chairman of Bruntwood Group, representing the private sector.
Oglesby said: "Mark's broad experience of working with businesses in the North West made him the clear choice for this position. Manchester has ambitious plans for growth over the next few years and Mark's role will be to take a lead in achieving this. He will be an excellent addition to Greater Manchester's wider leadership team."
Hughes said: "I look forward to working with colleagues at MIDAS, UKTI and the Business Growth Hub to integrate all that Greater Manchester has to offer to businesses and to ensure that the city-region capitalises on the opportunities that increasingly devolved local governance can provide."
Stewart said: "This new organisation, under Mark's stewardship, will enable us to further strengthen the relationship between local and central government, shaping the business support services provided to ensure that we are creating local jobs for local people."
Fantastic! – Secure tha status quo and then its business as usual!
By bernie
Same people, same tax payers money, new name.
By Sue deNim
Slightly unfair on Mark Hughes who was always one of the best officers at NWDA but it does smack of re-arranging the deck chairs again.
By John Brown
John Brown – I might add that it is re-arranging the exact same deck chairs in the exact same place. If its the same people doing the same old thing with their same old pals how do we inspire innovation, change and a new way of doing things. My prediction is that the economy picks up slowly, we have an even bigger boom than last time round, the same faces make even more money than last time and then we have another bust, and guess what? We start to rearrange the exact same deck chairs in the exact same place… and repeat
By bernie