CEO Update

Week 6 of lockdown and although we are all still grappling with the immediate consequences of this pandemic, eyes are now turning to the future and plans are starting to take shape focusing on business recovery.

In all honesty, looking at the current stats and figures, the outlook seems pretty bleak. It is clear that many businesses will not survive if the current structures and support mechanisms in place remain the same and unemployment figures are expected to rise dramatically. Manchester however remains resilient and positive. The message from the Mayor Andy Burnham this week, following a joint webinar with the Mayor of the City of Liverpool region Steve Rotheram, was that we will #buildbackbetter and take on some of the best bits of lockdown to build a stronger economy and society. United, the two mayors are calling for a positive change and I quote Steve Rotheram’s tweet ‘a resetting of the dial to build a fairer, greener future’ for our regions.

This Friday, pro-manchester Chair Jenn Hazlehurst will be hosting a webinar in collaboration with Professional Liverpool with the two mayors. This is our ideal opportunity to dig further into the #buildbackbetter campaign and get to grips with how, collectively, we can make our regions better on the other side of all this. Please click here for more details and booking information

In another collective effort and with a focus on recovery, the GM business representatives have been collating initial ideas to stay ahead of the curve and minimize impact of this crisis in the future. With rumours of a reverse lockdown and/or a sector by sector approach to the removal of the lockdown measures, pro-manchester and the Growth Company, alongside our business representative partners, will be working on a series of sector roundtables to try to understand how we can start to rebuild our economic activity and build confidence as we come out of lockdown. Calling on the expertise of our sector committees and groups we will be discussing the challenges, the opportunities and how Manchester will remain proactive and ready with regards to its recovery plan. Keep an eye out sector groups, I will be in touch and engaging each of you in the activity over the coming weeks.

Furthermore I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that pro-manchester and the Manchester Law Society have been supporting the GM Chamber of Commerce with the promotion and response rate of the weekly GM Business Monitor Survey. To view the results of week 3 please click here. To complete the next survey please go to – https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GMCCBusinessMonitor

At pro-manchester this week, I am delighted that we will be joined by Sacha Lord for our Wednesday webinar. Sacha is Manchester’s night time economy advisor and the man behind the incredible @StreamGM – filling our homes with music, talent and joy during isolation and raising amazing amounts money in the process. For more information and to register please click here .

Don’t forget if you have missed any of our previous webinars you can catch up on our You Tube channel here and for a full list of our up coming activity please go to the pro-manchester events page here.

Stay home, stay safe and look after yourselves.

Sam Booth
Chief Executive