Connectec were nomitated for the Wales Fast Growth 50
27/10/2022 Neil Levett 880
This year, we were thrilled to hear we had been nominated for the Wales Fast Growth 50 Awards. The awards, which are sponsored by Barclays, are designed to highlight the fastest growing business' in Wales and are given out at an amazing black-tie event in Cardiff.
Connectec were entered into 2 categories, both of which we came 2nd in, and out of the 50 finalist we came 15th overall. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Creo Medical who came in first place with a massive 9260% rate of growth since 2019, a very worthy winner indeed.
We would also like to thank our customers who have stuck by us in one of the most challenging couple of years in living memory, without you we would not be here, let alone going strong!
Here is what Professor Dylan Jones-Evans OBE, founder of the Wales Fast Growth 50 has to say about the awards...
This year, the Wales Fast Growth 50 publishes the twenty fourth listing of the fastest growing Welsh firms at a time when the UK economy faces some difficult headwinds due to a combination of higher energy prices, increasing inflation and a subdued business environment. That is why this year’s awards are more important than ever. With every business reconsidering their strategies for the future when uncertainties remain as to the future growth of the economy, the fifty firms featured in this magazine continue to be role models for others to follow in their footsteps.
As with every firm that has featured on the Fast Growth 50, they make an incredible contribution to prosperity, employment, and innovation across the Welsh economy. And they now become part of group of 701 entrepreneurial firms that, since we started charting their development in 1999, are estimated to have created 55,000 jobs and generated an estimated £30 billion of additional turnover, much of which is spent in their local area.
The 2022 cohort of fast growth firms is a special list for several reasons, not least in that they have achieved their amazing growth during a Covid pandemic that resulted in the worst economic crash since the early 18th century. At a time when staff were kept at home, employees were furloughed, suppliers were closed, and customer confidence was at record lows, these fifty Welsh businesses have powered through the worst of the recession in 2020 and have achieved rates of growth that are as good as those by firms based across the rest of the UK.
In every sector of the Welsh economy and across every part of the nation, we have identified businesses led by inspirational founders who, despite the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, buckled down not only to survive difficult market conditions but also, through the hard work of their talented teams, achieved growth that would be spectacular even in good economic times. In many sectors, from medical technology to construction to fintech to recruitment, they are demonstrating the entrepreneurial potential that can be found in the Welsh economy. More importantly, a number of these businesses look set to become market leaders in what they do so well.
Yet again, the 2022 Wales Fast Growth 50 celebrates the best that the Welsh business community has to offer and demonstrates the impact that a small group of firms can have on both wealth and job creation across the Welsh economy.
Despite the lockdown on the economy in 2020, this year’s list of fifty growth firms generated a collective turnover of £654 million in 2021 and employed nearly 4,000 people. More importantly, they produced an additional £405 million in turnover during the period 2019-2021 at an average growth rate of 162 per cent. More importantly, these fifty businesses created over 1800 new jobs in just two years, growing workforce by 80% during the worse recession ever and demonstrating their continuing importance across the Welsh economy at a time when the Covid pandemic was affecting every business in Wales
Finally, congratulations to Creo Medical for achieving a record growth rate of 9260% between 2019 and 2021, the highest growth we have had since we started the listings back in 1999. In developing unique technologies that make a real difference to people’s lives across the world, this pioneering company is already a world class entrepreneurial business that is putting Wales on the map globally. They, and the rest of this year’s cohort, are a group of fifty phenomenal firms that out of a population of over 260,000 Welsh firms, are showing how to grow their businesses during difficult economic timesI am sure you will join me in celebrating their achievements and wishing them all every success for the future.
About Neil Levett
Neil is head of Connetec's marketing team. Neil loves art and music and is always looking for his next adventure.
