Main Sponsors

Jonny Hick is a Beverley born, Harrogate based entrepreneur who has started 16 businesses from scratch and only ever been an employee for one of his 35 years in business. At 19, he introduced giant foam hands into the UK for the 1983 Rugby League Challenge Cup Final at Wembley. His team Hull FC lost 4-10 to Featherstone Rovers but he did sell 5000 hands and expected to be a millionaire “this time next year, Rodney” Unfortunately he hadn’t yet married his future lawyer wife, Catherine, and wasn’t too familiar with the words “Intellectual” and “Property”. At 27, he launched the world’s first drive-thru fish and chip restaurant – Hudson Bay. 3 years later it became a very successful burger restaurant…called McDonalds. His business journey has also included an advertising agency, a global branding agency and a Mediterranean yacht charterer (which sank in a hurricane in 2008 – the same year as he tried to buy Leeds United….clearly an omen). He is best known as the founder, in 1998, of Directorbank, which he built from offices in Leeds then London and Frankfurt to become the leading provider of main board directors to private equity and venture capital backed companies in Europe – helping make several hundred millionaires on the way. These days he primarily works with Zeus Capital, the boutique investment bank which floats 30% of all businesses on AIM each year (raising over £1 billion pa). He is also a director of Great Yorkshire Radio. Jonny appeared on C4’s Secret Millionaire programme on Easter Sunday 2009 speaking out for mental health, having suffered two serious breakdowns himself. He is also a well known speaker and has delivered over 1500 of his trade mark poems over the last three decades – welcoming to Yorkshire Presidents Clinton, Gorbachev, Walesa and de Klerk. The poem he wrote to welcome Lord Hanson to the 250th Anniversary of the Yorkshire Post was published as part of James Hanson’s obituary by the Financial Times in 2004. His son Ben is a chartered accountant and his daughter Rebecca is a solicitor. They saw the light re entrepreneurialism.

Town Centre Securities (TCS) has a high quality portfolio around the UK comprising of over 360,000 sq ft of prime office space and over 900,000 sq ft of retail space.

Through a strong and considered property investment strategy, TCS aims to deliver long term total shareholder value. This entails maximising rental income and capital values from all its properties.

The Group concentrates on investing in locations that are likely to demonstrate sustainable growth, at the same time as disposing of properties that no longer meet the TCS’s stringent criteria for future performance.

TCS has a reliable and repetitive income stream which forms the backbone of its activities, and is constantly seeking to work with tenants to improve its properties and provide space to satisfy tenants’ requirements in the most effective manner.

The group opened their first restaurant in 1977, aiming to present high quality authentic Kashmiri cuisine to people in the Bradford/Shipley area. The family run group has prospered over the last 30 years and now has branches throughout Yorkshire and is still expanding.

The company is a fully composite Licensed Trade Wholesaler supplying Beers, Wines, Spirits and Soft Drinks to pubs, clubs and restaurants within a 30 mile radius of their Keighley base.

They offer high service levels to their customers and believe that it is this level of quality service that sets them apart from their competitors. Their customers appreciate this personal approach in today’s market, and their range of Cask Ales sourced both locally and from all over the country complements stocks of Ales, Beers and lagers from big national brewers.

Blacks Solicitors LLP is a Leeds-based 19 partner law firm specialising in commercial, property, sports/media and private client work. Our main priority is giving our clients the best possible service, which is demonstrated by our exceptional client-retention rate. In particular, we pride ourselves on:

• providing reliable cost estimates;
• providing practical no-nonsense advice;
• returning calls promptly; and
• keeping our clients regularly updated

Since 1963, CitiPark has been dedicated to providing outstanding car park services across the country.

CitiPark is wholly owned by TCS PLC and is one of the leading parking operators in the UK.

We are committed to providing quality services with the personal touch as well as using the latest technologies such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to make your park

Twinkles Nurseries are a chain of private day nurseries in North and West Yorkshire. Twinkles began in 2000 with the first nursery in Boston Spa and have since grown to a chain of five, with the most recent opening in September 2014.

Jill Johnson, the Managing Director, is a qualified Primary Teacher with a First Class Honours Degree. Jill is regarded as an industry expert who contributes to government policy and industry think tanks. With total quality orientation, she has been shortlisted twice on Business Woman of the Year, and has recently been awarded the NMT Nursery Power 20 Award 2015. Jill started the company with the vision of providing quality childcare for children who lived in the local area. She wanted to create a place and employ the people that she’d have liked her daughter to benefit from when she was growing up, somewhere where children shine.

Twinkles aim is to provide children with a safe, intellectually stimulating and fun environment.