Janine Smith

In 2021, Janine became the first female director to lead the GC Business Growth Hub, having successfully led a range of multi-million-pound contracts and programmes in the public and private sectors.

Janine is adept at designing services that answer specific challenges within business. In 2017 she developed the Mentoring for Growth programme with the small business champions Be the Business. Initially run as an unfunded pilot across Manchester and Birmingham, Janine helped secure a two-year funded contract for the Growth Company to run the scheme nationally.

Janine has also been instrumental in managing the Hub’s involvement with the Manufacturing Growth Fund, which over the past six years has provided the engineering and manufacturing sectors in the North West with access to funding and specialist expertise.

She has also secured funding and delivered programmes such as Digital Cheshire, which offers small-medium sized enterprises the opportunity to bring a new level of digital connectivity to their operations, and Recipe for Success Lancashire, which has specifically helped connect the region’s food and drinks businesses with buyers.