Communities Minister Baroness Hanham CBE impressed with NW High Growth Programme and Winning Pitch

The North West Regional Development Agency hosted a visit from Baroness Hanham CBE, Communities Minister from the Department for Communities and Local Government.  The Baroness, who sits in the House of Lords had requested to see how several projects supported by Funding from Europe (ERDF) had benefitted companies and capital projects in Manchester.

In September 2008 Winning Pitch were awarded the contract to deliver the North West High Growth Programme, this is the largest publicly funded high growth support programme in the UK.  As part of her day in Manchester, the NWDA requested Winning Pitch to arrange a visit to one of our High Growth companies to demonstrate the success of the High Growth Programme to the Baroness.

Nick Melvin, Managing Director of Delineo - who has been coached by Winning Pitch consultant Jed Hassid hosted the visit.  Nick and his team gave an extremely warm welcome to Lady Hanham – the hospitality extending to a full tour of the premises and a box of doughnuts! Nick explained that the Programme “has totally transformed the way we run our business and we are now way ahead of our performance targets”. He went on to say that that is the first business support intervention that has delivered any tangible benefits to their business and the support provided by Winning Pitch and the Programme has been exceptional.

Lady Hanham was impressed with Delineo, the High Growth programme and Winning Pitch – and seemed delighted that ERDF funds were helping to deliver real benefits to the North West economy.