Sheffield Digital has joined the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) Business Advisory Group. We will represent the tech sector in discussions about issues that are important to the region’s economy. Group members are asked to share intelligence which informs the delivery of the region’s Strategic Economic Plan and Renewal Action Plan, so we will be engaging with you to ensure your voices are heard and we will feed back regularly about what is discussed.

Chris Dymond, Director of Sheffield Digital, is our representative on the Business Advisory Group, and will attend meetings every eight weeks. Other group member organisations include the region’s Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses, MakeUK, the CBI, SY Community Foundation, the trade unions, Sheffield Property Association, the Cutler’s Company and representatives from the third sector.

Members will inform, assist and enhance the work of the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and the Mayoral Combined Authority (formally known as the Sheffield City Region) by providing in-depth and specialist business intelligence.

Through our involvement, we will make sure that the digital industries – and the wide range of businesses working in them – are heard and considered in the delivery of the Strategic Economic Plan and Renewal Action Plan. This includes areas such as business growth, skills programmes and investments in digital and physical infrastructure.

How will we involve you?

To be your voice at this level, we will offer two-way communication between our membership and the Business Advisory Group. After each bi-monthly meeting, we will feed back to you the areas that were discussed with particular attention to things that directly affect the sector, and we will let you know what we contributed.

Using channels including Slack, a dedicated newsletter for senior leaders of our company members and direct communication we will ask for your input, to help us influence the Group’s discussions.

If you are a senior leader and a company member of Sheffield Digital (or would like to be) and don’t want to miss out on our updates or the chance to have your say, please contact emma@sheffield.digital so that we can add you to the relevant mailing list.