DAVID has been at Speedo for over 15 years, is a Business Champion for the East Midlands and a non-executive director for England's Commonwealth Teams, so taking over from me as the Chairman of the Nottingham Creative Business Awards this year was simply a great opportunity for him to develop his belief in creative thinking and the value it brings to society and problem solving. I asked him all about tomorrow's event, and his plans for developing it next year and beyond.

What made you decide to Chair this year's Nottingham Creative Business Awards?

I don't think people take creativity seriously enough. Creative thinking is about new ideas and problem solving – it's about overcoming obstacles. Creativity is not just a group of laid-back people with funny working hours, it makes a significant contribution towards funding the local, regional and national economy, and is growing faster than the rest of the economy.

I'm interested in the ability to create new ideas, designs, products and services that can be replicated around the world, and at Speedo we have created design and innovation in Nottingham that has given us a global position. It's because of my belief in the power of creative thinking that I want to help promote creativity in Nottingham. Nottingham is establishing an impressive talent base here and we have the potential to create even more breakthrough ideas.

How can your experiences in business help Nottingham's creative industries?

I have been working with the best brains in the world to create new products, that we own the IP [intellectual property] to, supported by local talent from Loughborough University and Nottingham University, and I know from first-hand experience the power of creative problem-solving and committing to innovation and risk taking in business.

Yes, taking risks can be scary, but it is just as risky not to invest in creativity. We have competition from everywhere, it's not easy to be the best and there lots of industry followers who copy our ideas quickly. We are always looking for the next new idea.

What is needed from the creative businesses in Nottingham is creative thinkers to come forward and work together in a new approach to develop Nottingham's economy and go beyond our current ways of working. The world is changing so quickly that we need a different view of where and how we will live and work. As well as creative business thinking we need the arts to inspire us to go beyond the everyday.

What do you see as the role of the Nottingham Creative Business Awards?

It is simply one element of the city council's Creative Industries Strategy. We must attract multi-disciplined people with creative minds who are prepared to give their time and minds to helping support our creative businesses.

The awards celebrate the successes of our creative companies an I would like to be able to provide the winners with packages of business support and mentoring from a panel of experts and a bank of mentors to look at new approaches. The established creative businesses can then help young creative businesses, and in return they'll benefit from lots of fresh ideas and stimulation.

The awards are just one element of what the creative industries can do. The power and economic value of a new idea that gets picked up globally can bring huge new wealth to the city.

How do you see the Nottingham Creative Business Awards developing in the future?

The awards can help the creative industries learn to collaborate with each other and with local businesses and universities and learn to be more successful, sooner.

The council can help catalyse these collaborations, and we can hopefully bring in significant European funding by convincing Emda that we our creative industries have the talent and professionalism to help Nottingham to be one of the most competitive regions in Europe.

I'd like the awards to become more competitive every year and attract entries at all levels, from the grass roots right up to the major players. It would be great if Nottingham's big companies would also work together to help the creative industries as well as their own businesses.

We need to think about how it should evolve – maybe we should hold it in the Playhouse next year? We need investment, commitment and ideas from others to make the awards work even better as a true celebration of our creative talent. In this sense, I want the awards to play an increasingly smaller role, as others make their contributions felt, at the same time as getting bigger every year!