Department for International Trade announces first Scottish Export Champions

• Thirteen business leaders announced as the first Scottish Export Champions.
• A variety of different sectors are represented in the appointments, from companies based across the country.
• Each one will encourage other businesses in Scotland to start exporting and offer practical advice on how to break into new markets.

The Department for International Trade (DIT) has announced thirteen leading business figures as the first Export Champions for Scotland.

Between them they represent a variety of sectors that are key to the Scottish economy, including food and drink, energy, advanced manufacturing, FinTech and healthcare.

Having taken on these voluntary roles, they will now help DIT and Scottish Development International (SDI) to promote the benefits of exporting and encourage other companies across Scotland to consider selling to overseas markets.

This will be done through participating in export events, sharing their exporting stories with those in their sector, and providing advice to other businesses about how to break into new markets abroad.

Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said:

It’s fantastic to welcome these business leaders from across Scotland into the Export Champions programme. Between them they represent a huge range of different sectors, with each having their own unique story on how they have benefitted from selling into overseas markets.

This experience will be hugely helpful as they go out across the country selling the benefits of exporting to other companies. We know that Scotland has so much potential when it comes to selling goods and services abroad, and we want to make the most of that.

That’s exactly what these Scottish Export Champions all hope to achieve – and I look forward to working closely with them over the coming years to help us reach our goals.

The Export Champion community was introduced in response to a desire from businesses to receive peer-to-peer exporting support.

The Department for International Trade worked in partnership with SDI to select each Champion, with each one having a successful international trade track record, a good story to tell about how exporting makes a positive difference to a company, and a desire to share their knowledge and experience with others.

In addition to James Varga being appointed as an Export Champion, his company DirectID has also been appointed as the new FinTech Champion for Scotland.

James Varga, CEO & Founder at DirectID said:

I was incredibly humbled and excited when I was invited to help champion exporting in the Fintech sector.

From day one we set up DirectID with a vision to create a global platform - giving decision makers all the data they need to make confident credit & risk decisions. DirectID now powers some of the world’s biggest brands in North America, Europe and Asia to scale, drive efficiencies, manage risk, and create fairer outcomes for their customers.

Whether it’s working with other industry figures to promote the UK as a place to do business, or sharing knowledge of our experience exporting to multi-national organisations, I’m proud to be supporting the growth of the £11 billion UK Fintech economy.

The FinTech Champions scheme was established by DIT last year as a way of better supporting the UK FinTech industry. DirectID will be tasked with working alongside other industry leaders to elevate Scotland and the UK’s status as a global FinTech hub.