People in Business 14th March 2025

Special guest Sally Themans will be joining us to give an outline of her career and to also speak about the importance for businesses to engage with their community to form meaningful and authentic advantage. Sally has been working with local authorities for 8 years in the place arena supporting high street regeneration which she combines with coaching and advising retailers, start-ups and SMEs, and has worked with over 1000 individuals on their business journey. Sally has taken towns to win and be runner up in the Great British High Street competition and has also been on the panel of judges. She has also advised at government level how to get communities involved in their place, and is now helping businesses to connect with each other and become more embedded in their local communities. With a strong ambition that she wants to make a difference to places, Sally believes that helping businesses thrive in turn helps communities thrive – the two go hand in hand.

Her ‘Love Wellington’ ‘Love Shifnal’ and ‘Love Bridgnorth’ social media platforms have a combined following of 45,000 and regularly reach a monthly audience of over 2 million. Sally was recognised as a UK’s ‘Business Hero’’ during the pandemic, receiving the accolade from The British Chambers of Commerce including a letter of thanks from HRH the Countess of Wessex for the efforts and community work supporting high streets, SMEs and businesses to protect local economies. The Good2Great Step Up for Business Programme for new businesses won the 2023 FSB ‘Service Excellence’ Award for the West Midlands region, and was shortlisted for a King’s Award for Enterprise for promoting opportunity. Sally continues to form an essential independent link between local authorities, local communities and local businesses working at grass-roots level to enable bottom-up change. She is a member of the Institute for Place Management and was a guest speaker at Shropshire’s International Women’s Day event.

Event Venue: Kendal Court, Ironmasters Way, Overdale, Telford, TF3 4DT