Darren, the Worcestershire Growth Hub Manager, is responsible for leading the team to support businesses across Worcestershire, from startup to MNC. His team will continue to enhance growth while gathering key business intelligence data to support decision making for the County and lobby central government as the voice of businesses in the region. He brings a wealth of experience from Employability & Skills, recently managing employer engagement for Seetec Plus across Central England. Educated in Human Resources & Business (postgrad) and International Relations & Politics, Darren is relishing balancing the needs of both the public and private sectors.

Randesh advises businesses on the types of support, grants and other programmes that they can access to help them start-up, or grow their business in the county. This includes introductions to the support providers, grant funding organisations, universities and other partners that can help.

Randesh focuses her support on businesses located within the county districts of Worcester City and Wychavon.

Jamie helps businesses in Worcestershire to identify and access any support, grants and programmes available to them which can help them to start up, grow and run their business. Worcestershire offers a fantastic range of local support, and we are on hand to help them access it all.

Jamie focuses his support on businesses located within the county districts of Wyre Forest and Malvern Hills.

Sarah helps businesses in Worcestershire to identify and access any support, grants and programmes available to them which can help them to start up, grow and run their business. Worcestershire offers a fantastic range of local support, and we are on hand to help them access it all.

Sarah focuses her support on businesses located within the county districts of Bromsgrove and Redditch.

Paul help businesses in Worcestershire look for the right support that is relevant to the needs of the business, which is based on their challenges and barriers to growth. He enjoys helping people within the business who want to increase their own skill level, to help them grow as an individual, which in turn can be used to benefit the business.

Paul focuses his support on micro businesses (less than 4 employees) based across Worcestershire.

Rachel supports the SkillsBoost Project Manager and the wider team with the administration of SkillsBoost. This involves ensuring clients have completed all aspects of the applicaton process correctly. We are then able to generate a purchase order so the client can invoice their share of the SkillsBoost funding. Without the correct application process, we cannot award funding, so attention to detail throughout the process is paramount to a successful application.

Pior to this, Rachel worked in publishing for over 25 years.

Louise’s job involves being a first point of contact for enquiries coming through to the Growth Hub. These can be from Worcestershire businesses looking to access various business support to individuals looking for support and advice to set up their own business.

Louise sets up meetings between businesses and account managers and provides various administrative support across the Growth hub.

In Ana’s role, she acts as the initial contact for businesses in Worcestershire, whether they are startups or established companies, looking for support. She handles enquiries via phone and email, collects relevant information, and connects them with the appropriate Account Manager.

Additionally, Ana maintains the CRM with up-to-date data and provides administrative support across the Growth Hub.

Alex’s role is to lead on promoting the Worcestershire Growth Hub to drive more local businesses to engage with the Growth Hub team. Alex oversees the Growth Hub marketing and communications strategy, managing activities like email marketing, social media, video production and events.

Alex started his career with the LEP/Growth Hub as an digital marketing apprentice nearly a decade ago, having since completed a Level 3 and Level 6 Degree Apprenticeship in Digital Marketing & Communications.