Our venue for the Yorkshire & North East regional final was the former Leeds Club — where the entrepreneurs of the region’s textile and other manufacturing industries would once have congregated. 

We welcomed back guest judges Caroline Theobald, a leading promoter of entrepreneurship in Newcastle and the North East, and Gordon Black, a venture capitalist and former manufacturer from West Yorkshire — plus a trio of Charles Stanley’s Leeds representatives. 

Our four finalists were all in cutting-edge technologies: Honcho in online vehicle insurance; Testcard in easy-access patient testing for healthcare; Element 2 in hydrogen power for truck and bus fleets; and Micropore in pharm manufacturing. 

Again, a near-impossible choice but a terrific conversation — and a range of entries from a geographical spread that tells us entrepreneurship is alive and well in the UK provinces.