Business South 2026 Annual Conference
Central South – Shaping Tomorrow Together
The Business South Annual Conference is the flagship business event in the Central South region’s calendar. Attracting over 200 senior business leaders and key stakeholders from the private and public sector it enables new connections to be established and new collaborations to take place.
The title of the Business South Annual Conference for 2026 is Shaping Tomorrow Together, we look forward to welcoming our champions and guests.
As we look towards the future for the Central South, we’ll hear from a fascinating line-up of speakers with ideas to share and there will be an update from our Action Groups, who form the bedrock of Business South.
If you would like to apply to speak at the event, please email: events@businesssouth.org
Event Speakers

Emily Hudson
Emily Hudson is the Senior Journalist covering politics in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight for the BBC.
She regularly appears on BBC South Today and Politics South, BBC Radio Solent and if you open up your BBC app on your phone, she’s likely to have written at least one of the articles in the Hampshire section every week! Emily has worked at the BBC for 25 years and met thousands of people in that time, hearing their stories, their views and giving them a voice.
Her role also involves taking some really complicated subjects like devolution and local government reorganisation and trying to explain them and make sure people understand how they will be affected.

Jeremy Greaves
Jeremy Greaves has been at Airbus for more than 20 years in a number of diverse international and UK leadership roles including: Vice President, UK and International Communications & PR; Vice President, UK Corporate Affairs & Strategy and currently as Head of Strategic Engagement & Heritage for Airbus Defence and Space UK. He is also the Airbus UK Key Account Manager for NATO, EU and AUKUS.
In Q4 of 2025 Jeremy was appointed UK Deputy Head of Delegation to the NATO Industrial Advisory Group (NIAG). The NIAG is composed of senior industry representatives who provide defence industrial expertise and strategic insights to NATO. It serves as the voice of UK industry into NATO, helping form positions on industrial policy, technology, and capabilities while fostering collaboration.
He is a graduate of the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS 2018) and has recently stepped down as an Honorary Captain, Royal Naval Reserve, after 13 years. In the distant past Jeremy completed a short career commission in the Royal Navy and then spent a further 15 years in the Royal Naval Reserve before being made one of the few Honorary naval officers.

Nicola Millard
Nicola is a presenter, writer and researcher on people-centred innovation in customer experience, digital workplace and the future of work.
Nicola has done a range of roles, including futurology, research, usability, customer service, marketing, and business consulting. She was involved with a number of BT firsts, including the first application of artificial intelligence into their call centres, initial experiments with home working, and helping to develop the “net easy” score; a new way of measuring customer experience. She currently looks at innovation in both employee and customer experience.
Nicola is an award-winning presenter, with two TED talks and hundreds of conference panel, chair and keynote sessions under her belt. She occasionally pops up on radio and TV around the world, including appearances on ‘Woman’s Hour’, ‘Tech Tent’, ‘The Genius of Invention and Back in Time for the Weekend’ for the BBC. In 2019, she was listed as one of the top 10 UK CX Influencers by Customer Experience Magazine.
Nicola got her PhD from Lancaster University in 2005 and has authored over 50 publications.

Sir Julian Young
Julian retired 5 years ago from the RAF as a 3-star Air Marshal and Chief Engineer. He served as the 140th President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
He is now a part-time Engineering Consultant, seeking to make good use of his aerospace knowledge and expertise, strong work ethic, board-level management, programme delivery and leadership skills.
In his last Service appointment he was immensely proud to have reached the top as the Director General Air (nee Chief of Materiel (Air) in the Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) and to have been the RAF’s Chief Engineer and ‘Air Member for Materiel’ on the Air Force Board.
In the Director General Air role Julian led 2,200 professionals and put to work an annual budget of £3.7 billion, with personal accountability for acquiring and supporting all the MOD’s fixed-wing aircraft from F-35 through Rivet Joint to the A400M transport aircraft. He was responsible for engaging with Front Line customers, multiple International Partners and all large UK/US/European Aircraft Industry Suppliers.
Previously, Julian was Director Helicopters in the DE&S as a 2-star. In this role he led 730 professionals and managed an annual budget to deliver acquisition, airworthiness and support for all Defence Helicopter fleets. He was the principal supplier of air capability to the British Army and Royal Navy Commands.
Prior to that he was the Technical Director & Chief Information Officer in the DE&S, and led the Engineering and Programme Management Functions and Quality Assurance for all DE&S projects.




