Twenty-five years of Welsh ambition and resilience

It takes ambition to start a business and resilience to build it through thick and thin. On both counts, Wales has no shortage of success stories – judging by the track record of the companies that have featured in the Fast Growth 50 Wales Awards over the last 25 years.

The statistics speak for themselves. Since the annual list was first produced in 1999, the 720 firms that have been featured are estimated to have created around 65,000 jobs and generated £38bn into the Welsh economy. In 2022 alone, they had a collective turnover of £880 million and employed 4,200 people.

Over the years, the awards have been a beacon to inspire other potential entrepreneurs and showcase what can be achieved, even in the face of adversity.

Through credit crunches, bank crashes, austerity and Brexit, hundreds of Welsh entrepreneurs have started and built businesses, adapting to the challenges and often turning them into an opportunity.

While it may feel like a different lifetime, it really wasn’t that long ago when we were all locked down and desperately trying to maintain a sense of business-as-usual from make-shift home offices and kitchen tables. Alien concepts like furlough, lateral flow tests and self-isolation became everyday vocabulary as businesses grappled with a fluctuating picture of rules and guidelines.

Those companies that were able to pivot, face up to the difficulties and embrace new ways of working and selling, proved that you could not only survive, but thrive. Some were creative enough to spot opportunities to repurpose existing processes to help tackle the pandemic, such as Hensol Castle Distillery, which switched from making gin to producing anti-bacterial handwash.

Freshwater was no exception in having to innovate. Overnight, our event and conference business took a nosedive, as social distancing measures and lockdown kicked in. However, we invested in a new online event management platform and started to run virtual events and conferences, creating a new side to the business that has continued to flourish to this day.

For us, the pandemic accelerated a business investment that we had been toying with for a while and it ended up being a sound venture. Even with in-person events now back and popular, we often give them an online dimension and run some online only events in a range of sectors, from infrastructure to education.

The other interesting element about this year’s list is longevity. Far from being new kids on the block, the average age of the firms on the current Fast Growth 50 list is 12, while the oldest – Village Bakery in Wrexham – will soon be celebrating its 90th birthday. This shows that you don’t need to be new to grow, but you do need to be resilient, responsive and adaptable to both change and challenges.

Freshwater has been going just two years more than the Fast Growth 50 awards and we’ve been on our own journey of adaptation. Set up by former journalist, Steve Howell, as a traditional PR agency in 1997, we’ve had to change as technology and innovation has shaped our industry and we now offer a whole host of integrated communication services, including digital, creative and video. In every business, standing still is simply not an option.

The Welsh companies recognised through the Fast Growth 50 are shining examples of what can be achieved when entrepreneurial spirit is embraced and a business vision gets turned into reality. But, as acknowledged by those who took to the stage in Cardiff, this rarely happens through the efforts of one person, which is why we were especially pleased to be given an award for ‘People Led Growth’.

As 2023 draws to a close, Welsh businesses once again find themselves facing a challenging economic climate, with high inflation and interest rates testing our resilience.

If there has ever been a time to call on the spirit and resolve of our entrepreneurs, as well as the support of all the talented and hard-working teams that have supported their visions, then it’s now.

This article was written by our chief executive, Angharad Neagle, and featured in the Western Mail on 11 December 2023