An entrepreneurial young film maker from Newport is among those playing a starring role in getting other would-be entrepreneurs to embrace enterprise and become the small business ‘A-listers’ of tomorrow.

Valleys-based business Trust Productions was appointed to help encourage others based in the region to play a lead part in their own business success stories through the production of a new video message.

Hamish Kay, from Newport, set up Trust Productions after he took a job in a clothes shop to support his real passion for playing music, and learned how to produce his own music videos too.

Since then Hamish has produced videos for Bargoed band 4th Street Traffic, Caerphilly-based girl group Electro Vamp, comedian Rhod Gilbert and the Welsh Rugby Union among others, after setting up base at the Welsh Innovation Centre for Enterprise in Caerphilly.

Now Hamish has used his expertise to create a special video message from fellow member businesses based at Welsh ICE, aimed at encouraging other aspiring business owners living in the wider South Wales Valleys to follow their own entrepreneurial dreams.

Hamish said: “I never thought of myself as particularly entrepreneurial, but as my self-taught expertise grew so did my workload and eventually I had to make the break and look at it as a full-time business.

“Launching and learning to run my own business has certainly been a learning curve, but ultimately I get to do something I love every day in a place where I am able to share my thoughts and ideas with other people who are making a full-time living out of their own, true passions too.”

Set up in 2012 to provide a distinctive creative environment for new entrepreneurs to feed off each other’s ideas and enjoy a high level of practical support from experienced business owners acting as mentors, Welsh ICE now hosts projects in conjunction with Business Wales, The Prince’s Trust, Cardiff Start, the University of South Wales, UnLtd and many others.

To raise further awareness of the support available, member businesses based at Welsh ICE joined forces to film their message to others before launching the video at a special ‘premiere’ held at the Showcase Cinema in Nantgarw.

Welsh ICE staff also attended the debut showing alongside CEO Gareth Jones, who also helped secure a £350,000 Welsh Government funding programme released via Welsh ICE to start-up businesses in Wales that has already supported a rising proportion of businesses to get started, and will continue to provide increasing entrepreneurial growth moving forward.

Gareth said: “Welsh ICE exists to help those would-be businesses get the direction, support and mentorship they need to become the region’s leading service providers, innovative champions and, most importantly, employers of tomorrow.”