LJMU Vice-Chancellor appointed to city region's new Business and Enterprise Board

Liverpool John Moores University Vice-Chancellor Professor Mark Power is to represent higher education on the Liverpool City Region’s new Business and Enterprise Board.

Mayor Steve Rotheram announced the appointments to the new board which has taken over the role of the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) in providing a voice for business in the area.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Mark Power said: “A key aim of our ambition and vision for the future of LJMU, which we outlined in our Strategy 2023 launched earlier this year, is to forge meaningful collaboration across the Liverpool City Region which will ultimately build skills, the economy, society and community.

“Partnerships between the university, organisations and businesses across the region are certainly not something new to us, but our more focussed objectives are driving forwards even more collaboration throughout the city and its neighbouring boroughs.

“I’m delighted to tell you that I will be working closely with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s new Business and Enterprise Board, representing higher education alongside the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, Professor Tim Jones.

“Collaborating with business and industry, across all sectors, will help to drive local economic growth and I’m confident that having higher education represented at this level across the region will have many benefits for our students and the businesses and communities of Liverpool.”

Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram, said: “Thriving local businesses are the backbone of our economy and, for our area to flourish, we need them to succeed. Through our new Business and Enterprise Board, we have pulled together a team that boasts decades of hand-on experience at leading organisations and, it’s my hope, that their knowledge and insight will help us to join-up our thinking with fresh ideas to grow our economy.

“I want the Liverpool City Region to be the home of ‘good’ business and I’m looking forward to seeing where the Board will take us on our journey to making our area the best place in the country to live, work and run a business in.”

The Board has been appointed after an extensive recruitment process, carried out over recent months, which attracted applications from 65 high-calibre candidates. In appointing the Board, the Combined Authority has worked hard to ensure gender balance, ethnic diversity, and geographic representation across all six areas of the Liverpool City Region.

The Board’s first formal meeting will be in October.