Thank you for your interest in this story.
To continue reading this article, subscribe to the Stray Ferret for as little as £1 a week.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
27
Apr
Interview: 'David is real' - business board chair's verdict on North Yorkshire's Mayor
It’s five months now since Jennifer Wood was appointed as chair of the York and North Yorkshire Mayor’s business board, and she seems to have settled into the job, but there have been a few surprises along the way.
Speaking to the Stray Ferret at the headquarters of O&3, the Ripon-based oils business she co-founded and still runs with her two siblings, Eleanor and Thomas, she admits the role of chair is not quite what she thought it would be.
She says:
I thought I’d be a bit more in the detail – because I like detail – but it’s actually more of a case of being a ‘presence’: going to events and talking about business, and the Mayor’s impact on business.
I’m really enjoying that. I never expected to be out and about so much. For example, I never expected to represent the Mayor at the Stray Ferret Business Awards – but how great!
Those expectations are not the only ones to have been defied since the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority assumed its powers on February 1, 2024.
When Labour's David Skaith beat more traditionally qualified contenders to be elected as the region’s first ever Mayor, doubts were expressed in some quarters that a retailer with scant political experience would be able to meet the demands of such a high-profile post.
But that scepticism was misplaced, says Ms Wood:
That ‘green-ness’ brings a lot of energy and aspirational, visionary stuff, whereas someone who's been there before would arguably stick to the same path and not question those closed doors and those heavy barriers.
David is real. He's a terrifically real leader. He's from our region, from our streets, from our economy, and knows the reality of living, breathing, socialising, working and making money in our region. I believe in his ability to deliver because of that. If I didn't feel that, I couldn't do this role.
And that's my real enjoyment and love of working alongside him, because there is that ‘But why not?’, ‘Why can't we ask that question?’, ‘Why wouldn't we push that door open?’, ‘Let’s give it a go’ – that kind of mentality, which is very much who I am.
Jennifer Wood chairing the York and North Yorkshire Business Board.
Ms Wood leads a board of 13 business leaders who were selected by the Mayor’s team to contribute a depth of experience across a wide range of sectors.
She says:
Some may have been quick to criticise the fact that we have been selected without much clarity on criteria. But actually, that vast expanse of industry only serves to represent the vast expanse of region that we are.
We’ve got rural, we’ve got coastal, we’ve got urban – we've got a bit of everything here in North Yorkshire. And that’s reflected in our industry as well – we're not just sheep skipping through fields, and we’re also not just tourism in the centre of York. There’s a lot of other profitable activity that needs to be fed into those that are driving our regional direction.
Ms Wood’s positivity has been a crucial asset in her company’s successful fight to stay afloat. O&3 was doing very nicely until Brexit came along. For a company that exports to 63 countries and imports from a similar number, any obstacles to international trade are distinctly unwelcome.
To overcome the challenge, O&3 opened a facility in Poland inside 12 weeks. Its latest challenge, President Trump’s tariffs, threatens to put a serious dent in its bottom line – 25% of the products leaving its Ripon base are destined for the United States – but Ms Wood is ensuring O&3 is pivoting to other countries to fill any void.
She says:
It’s my cup-half-full approach that these guys [her 74 employees] get fed up with, but is what keeps us going. We know our products are needed in every country across the world, so we’re not panicking.
Another source of scepticism regarding the Mayor’s office has been the amounts of money he has to work with. The devolution deal that birthed the Combined Authority was worth £540 million, which may seem like a lot, but is dwarfed by South Yorkshire’s and Greater Manchester’s deals.
This year, for example, the Mayor’s business and skills budget seems to amount to £50,000 to develop and innovation and investment plan.
But Ms Wood says:
As much as it’s about investment and bringing money into our region, it's also about the Mayor being the voice that's listened to down in Westminster – and he is being heard by Westminster.
We had a fantastic roundtable with Keir Starmer the Friday before last, and with the other mayors to talk about tariffs. They wanted to understand what the impact of tariffs are, specifically within our region.
It was business talking to mayor, mayor talking to PM – you couldn’t get your voice heard any better than that.
David Skaith and Jennifer Wood.
For such a positive person, you’d expect her to have plenty of hope and ambition for the authority, the business board, and for her own role – and she doesn’t disappoint. She concedes it’s early days, so is reluctant to make any predictions as to concrete outcomes during the remainder of her tenure as chair, but says it will be up to others to determine whether she and the board have done a good job.
She says:
My greatest hope is that David and his team, and in turn Westminster, turn round and say ‘We couldn’t have done it without them – we couldn’t have delivered that, we couldn't have achieved that, we couldn't have won that – without the board's support, input, feedback and network – so they can see the value that a business board can bring to a regional economy.
As for the Mayor, I want him to be proud of his chair, to be able to put me in a room and say, ‘Go do your thing’. I want him to feel like I’m not going to let him down, hopefully.
0