Commissioned by Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, the The Good Business Festival aims to unite businesses and ‘conscious consumers’. Tony McDonough reports

Organisers of Liverpool city region’s Good Business Festival have released details of ‘Act 1’ of the event which is due to take place on Thursday, October 8.

Act 1 will be a hybrid live and digital event, filmed from ACC Liverpool plus locations in Toronto and Melbourne and broadcast online.

Commissioned by Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, and curated by Culture Liverpool and HemingwayDesign, The Good Business Festival aims to unite the growing global community of businesses and conscious consumers who believe business can deliver meaningful positive change in society.

Among those joining Mr Rotheram for Act 1 will be Nishma Robb, Google; Ann Cairns, Mastercard; Douglas Lamont, Innocent; Danny Sriskandarajah, Oxfam; and Frances O’Grady, TUC.

Audiences will have three channels of content to choose from over the day:

• Centre Stage – headline programming through the day from 10am to 9pm.
• Good Thinking – sessions from experts offering inspiration and practical advice for SMEs, startups and individuals.
• Open Source – a virtual workspace and resource library where content will be released throughout the day to support the live sessions with interviews, films, infographics, podcasts, supporting documents and exclusive reports.

The two-act structure for the festival was conceived as a response to COVID-19. Act 1 in aims to ensure that the momentum gained over a year of transformative change in business isn’t lost.

Sessions will explore our learnings from this shared experience and consider the new directions the world will take as we emerge from the turbulence of 2020. Core festival sessions will include:

• WTF Just Happened – a whistle-stop tour of key figures in business and society who’ll share their thought on what just happened to all of us, the effect this year has had on their own businesses and a positive look at what happens next.
• 1.5% of UK business leaders are Black – bringing together black business leaders and change specialists to help identify how all of the good words of the last few months can translate into meaningful change for business.
• Take Me to Your Leader – Australasia and North America – with New Zealand and Canada being hailed as the poster children for how to swiftly and effectively deal with crises, we ask – do we have to choose between governance led by compassion or economics? Does supporting social impact mean risking economic growth or can compassionate leadership boost not only GDP but health, happiness and national image?
• What About The Workers? How to be a Good Employer – focusing on how businesses can remain good in a time of rapid change.
• Raising the Game – focusing on the role of professional sport and sports business in society and what ‘good’ sport could look like.

One year on from lockdown, Act 2 of The Good Business Festival will take place in March 2021. Bringing some of the smartest and most creative minds from around the world to the Liverpool city region, it will challenge businesses and consumers to think bigger, galvanise ambition and continue to drive positive change as we start out on the road to collective recovery.

Mr Rotheram said: “The past few months have shown that we need to press the reset button on our economy. The Good Business Festival is the perfect platform to explore how we build back better and ensure our economy works for everyone.

“I’m determined to build the UK’s fairest, greenest and most inclusive local economy, which is why I commissioned the Good Business Festival and it is so exciting to have it here in the Liverpool city region.

“Bringing together major international business and thought leaders the festival will be a unique platform to stimulate debate and formulate ideas that can help make the UK a worldwide leader in successful, ethical business.”