About The Chart

A message from Professor Dylan Jones-Evans

"This year, the Wales Fast Growth 50 project celebrates its thirteenth anniversary."

After thirteen years of identifying the fastest growing firms in Wales, this unique initiative is firmly established as the list of business success that entrepreneurs across Wales aspire to. Every year, it is a constant remainder of the vast entrepreneurial potential that exists within the Welsh business sector, with growth performance by businesses that is as good as any to be found across the regions of the UK.

In Wales, we are often slow to applaud the performance of individual businesses in Wales, but the fifty firms that make up every year’s list are more than worthy of praise. To be described as one of the fifty fastest growing firms in Wales out of a business population of 200,000 is an achievement that should be widely recognised. Often, the project has not been appreciated by politicians and policymakers in Wales, and yet as the only regional barometer of indigenous business in the UK, the list continues to showcase the success of Welsh entrepreneurs and their businesses".

The supplement was originally as a one off list of the fastest growing firms in Wales but it has just continued year after year. To be honest, I still am amazed at the high level of interest by Welsh entrepreneurs in the Fast Growth 50 programme and every year, we get record numbers of applications for places on the list.

Of course, the biggest kick from the project is when owner-managers come up to me and say that being part of the Fast Growth 50 has enable them to win new business, enter new markets, get more favourable terms with suppliers, and access business support programmes. That is the most important part of the Wales Fast Growth 50 programme – that it not only recognises the best in Wales but makes a tangible difference to the performance of these businesses.

That is what makes the whole effort in putting the list together every year worthwhile.

Professor Dylan Jones-Evans is creator of the Wales Fast Growth 50 project.