Bristol’s Engine Shed has appointed Briony Phillips as associate director, enabling her to stay at the acclaimed innovation hub when her year-long post as its scale-up enabler comes to an end this month.
The new position will allow Briony, pictured, to continue to focus on developing Bristol and Bath’s scale-up ecosystem from the building at Temple Meads and supporting the regional Growth Hub – part-funding of the role by the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) has been made for this purpose. 
Her appointment also comes as plans for Engine Shed 2 continue to take shape. The new building, on the nearby Temple Circus site now occupied by the derelict George and Railway pub, will bring much-needed extra accommodation on stream for the award-winning SETsquared Bristol incubator and other uses.
An Engine Shed 3 is also envisaged to further build on the hub’s role in growing the regional economy and promoting a more diverse workforce by encouraging and staging collaborative projects around innovative tech and creativity.
Before joining Engine Shed last May Briony worked with Teach First, Open Data Institute, Deloitte and a start-up funded by Nominet Trust.
During her time as scale-up enabler, she has introduced quarterly investment briefings aimed at the investor community, scale-up briefings for founders, developed the scale-up strategy for the West of England, introduced a new property advisor-in-residence to tackle the office space challenge and facilitated hundreds of connections to support entrepreneurs advance their growth plans.
She said: “I’m delighted to be appointed, which means I can continue to deliver our scale-up activities and support Engine Shed as we scale-up too. It’s been rewarding to see how we have been able to support both entrepreneurs and investors as we actively work towards an inclusive regional economy.”
Housed in Brunel’s original station, which dates back to 1841, and a collaboration between Bristol City Council, the University of Bristol and the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership, Engine Shed has helped create more than 700 jobs and added £8m-plus to the local economy since opening four years ago.
Director Nick Sturge added: “Engine Shed’s journey has seen a five-fold growth in revenue and three-fold increase in size of the organisation, so Briony is a very welcome addition in strengthening the team.
“Briony has proved herself, over the past 11 months, as an effective networker and ambassador for Engine Shed’s values. We look forward to our next chapter of growth.”
