The Festival of Entrepreneurs is founded by James Ashwood, a 25-year veteran of events, advertising, and media. Many will remember October 2019’s Festival of Enterprise at the NEC, where over 4,000 entrepreneurs gathered to learn, connect, and grow. Though the pandemic paused those in-person gatherings, James was determined to return to the NEC and build on that success.

During lockdown, amid the wave of webinars and virtual events, James saw the climate crisis as both a challenge and a massive opportunity for British entrepreneurs in clean technology. From this insight, Innovation Zero was born, with Sir Liam Fox joining as Chair, championing British pioneers tackling our planet’s greatest challenge. With two highly successful events in the UK and an expansion underway in Texas, James is now focused on the next most critical issue—the economy and specifically supporting high growth entrepreneurs who are the engine for success.

In 2019, after learning about the ‘scale-up gap’: of the UK’s 5 million SMEs which account for half of the nations GDP, only around 30,000 are true ‘scale-ups’, yet they contribute half of the SME GDP. This gap inspires the Festival of Entrepreneurs. The goal is clear: help ambitious entrepreneurs learn from those who have successfully scaled. On May 14–15 at the NEC, we’ll bring together leading experts and successful entrepreneurs to share what it really takes to reach new heights.

We are honoured that Sir Liam Fox will once again lend his expertise and vision, serving as Chair for the Festival of Entrepreneurs. We invite entrepreneurs, business groups, trade associations, and innovators in business technology, finance and professional services to join us and ignite the next generation of scale-ups to fuel economic growth.

Alex Chisnall, former Content Director for the Festival of Enterprise in 2019 joins The Festival of Entrepreneurs as Content Director. Alex and James have worked together for 5 years and Alex brings considerable knowledge and energy to the event, having hosted globally leading podcasts with 600+ founders and business leaders and having a deep understanding of what makes the most driven entrepreneurs tick.

Start the conversation about how you or your organisation can participate in 2025’s most important event for scale up businesses.