MANAGING director of Southampton Airport Dave Lees is the latest high profile speaker to be announced for the Daily Echo-backed South Coast Business Works in February.

Dave has worked in aviation for over 20 years at a number of UK major and regional airports.

He has been MD at Southampton for six years and has led the airport to achieving success in growing the passenger traffic, becoming the number one airport for service in the UK as well as improving the environmental footprint of the business.

The title of his talk will be “Southampton Airport – Serving the South”.

In recent years Southampton has expanded its route network and has ambitions to continue to widen its appeal to business and leisure passengers in the coming years.

The airport is well connected and is renowned for its high standards of service and wants to play a larger role in securing growth to play its part in growing the success of the regional economy.

Dave completes a trio of impressive speakers for the event.

Already announced are Brad Roynon, the former chief executive of Southampton City Council, who chaired the steering committee of Go! Southampton - the organisation which campaigned successfully for the city centre to become a Business Improvement District (BID).

The title of his talk will Business Growth through Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) The third speaker is Andy Collyer, general manager of WestQuay, Southampton who will speak about the creation of the new £85m Watermark leisure complex, the first phase of which opened last week.

Business Works will take place at Novotel Southampton, on Wednesday February 1, from 10am – 4pm.

Trethowans Solicitors are back on board for the fifth year as principal sponsors alongside event partners Hampshire Chamber of Commerce and Destination Southampton.

Great rates on exhibitor packages are also available – call 023 8042 4872 or email businessworks@dailyecho.co.uk to find out more.

Visitors to the exhibition can register for free at dailyecho.co.uk/businessworks.