Growth Business Enabler of the Year 2018

Company name: London & Partners (Mayor’s International Business Programme)
Founder: Mayor of London
Started in: 2011
Based in: London
Business description: Promotional agency for London

London & Partners, the Mayor of London’s promotional agency, has been doing sterling work retaining, growing, and promoting the capital’s businesses since 2011.

It is a not-for-profit public-private partnership, funded by the Mayor of London, European and national funds, and its network of partners and other commercial ventures.

The Mayor’s International Business Programme helps ambitious high-growth (scale-up) companies from London’s technology, life sciences, creative and urban sectors to expand their businesses internationally.

Tailored to fit a company’s specific international growth ambitions, the programme provides one-to-one and one-to-many mentoring and ongoing guidance from entrepreneurs and business leaders, as well as focused workshops and events that provide the opportunity to learn from expert advisers.

It also helps businesses access live leads for specific business opportunities in North America, Europe, China and India and the opportunity to join high-profile targeted trade missions led by a team of international business experts.

For example, this May a group of 15 leaders of London’s fastest-growing women-led tech companies headed to Silicon Valley in the USA as part of the Mayor’s #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign. There have also been missions to Atlanta, Madrid, Toronto, Germany, Nashville, Paris and China, where participants get access to key decision makers at corporates, investors and influencers.

Since launching in February 2016, the Mayor’s International Business Programme has supported more than 500 of London’s high growth businesses in their international expansion. 50 leading businesses in the tech, life sciences, urban and creative sectors are accepted onto the programme every quarter. Participant companies gain access to bespoke support for one year in the form of mentoring, workshops, access to corporates, international trade missions and advice.

To date, the programme has supported companies to create 789 new jobs, close deals totalling £49m and raise investment to the tune of £133m. A recent cohort survey showed that more than 86% of the companies created new jobs in 2017; of these companies, 54% signed new deals and 56% entered new markets in the past year.

Communications and growth consultancy Fieldhouse Associates scooped Highly Commended in the Growth Business Enabler of the Year category, followed by PwC’s Scale-up programmes, which was Commended.