Hertfordshire Growth Hub - the county’s trusted business growth service - is celebrating 10 years of supporting businesses to grow their operations and resilience.

More than 14,000 businesses have benefited from Hertfordshire Futures’ flagship business support service since 2015, creating 1,750 jobs.

The service offers free and impartial, expert, one-to-one and peer-to-peer, business support alongside events, specialist programmes, resources, access to funding and much more. Companies and entrepreneurs have benefited from 150 workshops and webinars hosted by the service, and 490 grants have been facilitated to support business growth.

The range of topics bolstering business operations is just as diverse – from marketing to attracting new business, from sustainability and net zero to finance and grant-funding, from operations and planning to legal and regulatory compliance, and from recruitment to workforce development and wellbeing – to name a few.

Growth Hub is delivered on behalf of Hertfordshire Futures by a consortium of partners which includes Exemplas, University of Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce and Visit Herts. Over the past decade, more than 150 partners have engaged within the Growth Hub ecosystem – the wider network of businesses and organisations that are able to offer support both directly and indirectly to growing small businesses.

Adrian Hawkins OBE, Chair, Hertfordshire Futures, said: “Supporting 14,000 businesses to grow in the last 10 years is no small achievement – and seeing the people at the heart of those enterprises achieving their ambitions and dreams has been a real privilege for those at Hertfordshire Growth Hub. It is a real testament, too, to the bedrock of existing talent and strength of collaboration that underpins the Hertfordshire economy. I am truly grateful to our partners who share the mindset and passion of Hertfordshire Futures and the Growth Hub to increase, and widen opportunities to all, and we look forward to what the Growth Hub will achieve in the next 10 years.”

Welwyn-based, Superstar Communicator, run by Susan Heaton-Wright, benefited from a package of Hertfordshire Growth Hub support. This included five free sessions of advice and support to rationalise her products and services and guidance in creating a new website. The Growth Hub also introduced Susan to specialist legal advice and mentoring support. Two years after the initial support, the Growth Hub worked with Susan to review progress and identify opportunities leading to a successful grant award of £2,500 to invest in expert marketing support, and an introduction to Hertfordshire’s Create Growth Programme with the opportunity to develop a potentially ground-breaking product for the film industry.

“I’m really grateful to the Growth Hub for believing in and supporting me,” said Susan. “I’ve acted on all the advice I’ve been given. At every stage, the support has been invaluable. When you’re on your own, it’s so helpful to have experts that can act as sounding boards and keep you on the right path.”

Robin Longden, owner of Rollagranola, a healthier cereal company, started selling on market stalls and has now scaled up operations to produce a million boxes a year, hiring 28 staff from an original two.

“As our growth continues the challenges remain the same, only bigger,” Robin said. “The conversations we’ve had on what’s possible and how the Growth Hub can support us have been honest, direct and challenging in a good way. They’ve helped us make clear decisions and the significant financial support and subsequent investment has helped boost our turnover from £60k in 2015 to £2.8m by the end of 2024 and a run rate of £6m in the final two months.”

Hertfordshire Growth Hub connected Robin with a Growth Account Manager who carried out a full free review of the business, identifying barriers to growth, and support to secure match-funding for new machinery. The Growth Hub also identified a grant scheme which helped Rollagranola access external consultancy, specific to the food sector, to advise on UK market and growth opportunities.

Visit Hertfordshire Growth Hub.