Together We Can Take on the World

“Share your success and help others succeed. Give everyone a chance to have a piece of the pie. If the pie’s not big enough, make a bigger pie.”

It’s the kind of quote you might expect from a man whose business was food (Dave Thomas, founder of US restaurant chain Wendy’s), but it’s also highly appropriate for this year’s Entrepreneurs’ Forum’s Annual Business Conference - an absolute feast of success and filled to the brim with course after course of learning and inspiration.

From opening at 9am until we start our popular drinks reception after close at 5.30pm, we have a day that is packed with one tasty dish after another, all in the inspirational surroundings of BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.

Our superb menu of speakers will feed your appetite for stories of starting from nothing, taking risks, making mistakes, having the courage to be a pioneer, sustaining success and many more.

As Thomas suggests, there’s no greater value in being successful than sharing what you’ve learned. It’s why there’ll also be a big emphasis during the day on how those who have achieved are now sprinkling liberally their knowledge for the benefit of others.

In one of our most diverse and fascinating line-ups ever, our speakers are:

• Caprice Bourret, whose plan B eight years ago following a highly successful career as an international model and TV personality was to plough her own money into her By Caprice Lingerie business. Caprice finances, designs, models and markets the brand herself to major retail chains and independents in the UK, South Africa, USA and Scandinavia. Since 2007 the brand has expanded into swimwear and sleepwear.

• Kresse Wesling MBE, co-founder of Elvis & Kresse, a business built on discovering, intercepting, reengineering, changing perceptions and creating something new. It’s a story that started with decommissioned London Fire Brigade fire hoses that were destined for landfill before Kresse rescued them. They were the first of 200 tonnes of waste material that have been reborn as bags, belts, wallets and home accessories since 2005.

• Paul Shoker, a global serial entrepreneur with 27 years’ experience in communications and new media. In depth and hands on experience in identifying the building blocks that lead to growth and profitability, operational go to market, sales and marketing management. Direct experience in M&A, raising capital via public markets, VCs and private equity deals. Current focus areas include vice chairman and founder VentureFund.com a mentoring and funding enterprise. benefitsPLUS, one of India's leading online social reward and recognition platforms for companies and their employees, and founding member and board director of Koovs.com, India’s leading online fashion forward catalogue based in London and New Delhi, India.

• Sir Tom Shebbeare, the chairman of Richard Branson's Virgin StartUp which, following a pilot programme run by Virgin Money in the North East, is now being rolled out across the UK. Tom was the first employee and director of The Prince's Trust and now chairs a number of UK companies including the BAFTA winning Spring Films and Virgin Money Giving. He will talk about his experience of starting enterprises in both the charitable, not-for-profit and commercial sectors and the critical importance of mentoring.

As well as this stellar line-up of speakers, we’ll also hear from a panel of Ward Hadaway’s Fastest 50 high-growth local businesses. And if that weren’t enough to fill you, with more speakers still to be announced our full-day conference also gives all our guests the chance to meet socially, to gain knowledge share contacts and learn from fellow entrepreneurs.

It’s the one date in the North East business calendar that’s not to be missed – when it comes to business knowledge, you don’t want to go hungry.

This event is charged at £99 + VAT. Please be aware that cancellations received within 72 hours of the event will be charged in full.