Paula Whitehouse is Associate Dean for Enterprise at Aston Business School, and Director of the Aston Centre for Growth which she co-founded in 2014. Paula leads on the development of growth programmes and other business support initiatives at the Centre which have provided targeted support to over 700 SMEs since its inception. These have included the European funded Aston Programme for Small Business Growth which has accelerated the growth of over 160 early stage businesses in the Midlands region since 2015, and the Midlands programme of Productivity through People, a national initiative with Be the Business which welcomed its first Midlands businesses in 2018.