Happy 20th birthday, Business South! 🎉 To mark the occasion, we sat down with our MD, Lisa Lavis, who’s not only a Business South Champion but also a Non-Exec Director for the organisation, to find out why she’s such a fan.
Having run Glow for 26 years, Lisa’s seen more than her fair share of business networks come and go. So when she says Business South is different, it’s worth listening. “It’s not a networking organisation,” she explains. “It’s a lobbying organisation. It promotes Central South across the UK and across Europe. It’s in your corner every step of the way.”
That distinction matters. Twenty-five years ago, “Central South” wasn’t even a recognised region – businesses were lumped into the Southeast or Southwest instead. Business South changed that, giving the region its own identity and a louder voice.
For Lisa, the real value has come from the connections: Champion dinners, Action Groups tackling shared challenges, and conferences with genuinely brilliant speakers. She’s built real relationships along the way too, including with fellow Non-Exec Directors she now meets for coffee to swap ideas. And yes, she’s honest enough to admit new client relationships have come from being part of the community, even though Business South was never about selling to each other.
Looking back, Lisa says the last 20 years have been “absolutely phenomenal” for the organisation. Looking ahead, her hope is for Business South’s identity to grow even further, becoming what she calls the region’s answer to the Northern Powerhouse: a genuine global gateway to the UK and Europe.
As a Business South Champion ourselves, we couldn’t agree more. Here’s to the collaborations, the lobbying, and the connections that have shaped the Central South over the past two decades, and to everything still to come.
Happy 20th birthday, Business South. Here’s to the next 20 years.
Watch Lisa’s full interview here.
