The economy and opportunities for business growth, circularity and sustainability, societal change and its impact on attracting and retaining the next generation of talent were among the strategic themes discussed at the EDA’s Power It Up Industry Insight Conference on Wednesday 13th November 2024.
Over 190 senior leaders from 94 EDA businesses, plus representatives from the electrical contracting sector and from trade associations along the supply chain, travelled to Crewe to hear from UK and International speakers on these topics of strategic significance to the UK’s electrotechnical sector.
The conference was opened by Margaret Fitzsimons, CEO at the EDA and Chris Ashworth, EDA President and CEO at CEF.
The impressive speaker programme included entrepreneur, architect, innovator, inspirer and visionary Thomas Rau, who had travelled from the Netherlands to deliver “From Exit to Exist”, challenging business leaders to turn their thinking about the linear economy completely on its head and to recalibrate the relationship between humans, the planet, and our closed system of natural resources.
Margaret Fitzsimons, EDA CEO, said “Our aim with this Conference was to engage and stimulate delegates by getting the right people in the room and the right topics on the agenda. We took people out of their comfort zones and asked them to think out of the box. But it wasn’t all just blue sky thinking, we also gave them practical solutions to current problems that they could implement straight away.”
The day conference was followed by an evening networking drinks reception and dinner, hosted by the voice of University Challenge, Roger Tilling. After dinner speaker Nicolas Hamilton, racing driver champion, a member of Channel 4’s Formula One coverage team, held the room with his personal story of overcoming adversity to become the first disabled driver to compete in the British Touring Car Championship.
A raffle in the evening raised £2,940 for the Electrical Industries Charity (EIC). The cheque was presented to Jeremey Saunders, Global CEO at CEF, and President and Chair of the EIC, by special guest Nicolas Hamilton.
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