Welcome to The Business Culture Hull & East Yorkshire family. It’s here you’ll find a wide range of resources and opportunities for taking your business to the next level.
Our values and promise:
The Business Culture Hull & East Yorkshire is a family of like-minded businesses that share good news, advice, and support with the shared ethos of growth and connection. Everyone is friends here.
Supportive: We are always there to support and help our members
Caring and Compassionate: We really care about your business and understanding the challenges you face
Friendly: Everyone is welcome in The Business Culture Hull & East Yorkshire, we offer a friendly and laid back but honest approach to our work
Dependable: We can always be relied upon to be there for our members both socially and professionally
Read more about our brand story and journey
A place to collaborate and fuel mutual growth
Launching a business is one thing. Growing and evolving a sustainable organisation that does you proud and delivers an outstanding customer experience is another matter entirely. That’s why The Business Culture Hull & East Yorkshire was launched in 2016 to help sole traders, company directors, entrepreneurs and employees to come together under a shared mission of collaboration.
Six years later we have a network of around 200 businesses in our family and continue to grow and evolve. We continually listen to and work with our members to offer everything they need to take their business to the next level.
These now includes:
Hi, I’m Tony Bowler, and my mission is to connect people to support one another to develop their businesses.
But all that has come later in life (I’ve saved the best bit). My background was what prepared me for this.
If you’ve not already realised, I’m ‘Hull  and proud’, as we say around here. I love everything about Hull & East Yorkshire. I love the diverse and vibrant cultural scene, the business community, and the people and I even love our unique and distinct use of the English language!
What I really love about Hull & East Yorkshire is the sense of community. I grew up on ‘The Orchard’ an estate that was known for lots of things, some of which didn’t give the area a good name. But beneath that was the strongest and most supportive community I have ever been a part of.
That inbuilt sense of ‘all being in this together’ got me through my years of service in the British Army; completing tours of duty in West Berlin at the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’.
Many ex-services personnel find the return to civilian life very tough after the excitement and jeopardy of military service. I took a very different path to many, and rather than following the well-trod path into the emergency services, I chose IT!
I was very lucky in a career that kept me happy and fulfilled for almost 20 years, but as I came to realise that there were fewer years ahead of me than there we behind me, I started asking myself what had happened to the ‘Orchard’ kid? That Tony was always looking to be in control of my own destiny, not afraid to make tough decisions and willing to throw myself into new situations, no matter what?
What came next was a vision and a mission to build a community to benefit the whole of Hull and the Humber region, to create prosperity, jobs, and pride by connecting ALL businesses. The Business Culture Hull & East Yorkshire was formed in 2016 and is open to everyone in the HU postcode region and into our neighbouring counties without exception. It represents approaching 200 businesses that in turn represent more than 65,000+ employees in every sector and of every size.
I’m also very proud (and thankful) that I’ve been joined and supported every step of the way by my wife, Michelle. She also knows a thing or two about the value of community.
Her father was English, a former member of the British Armed Forces. His surname, and therefore Michelle’s, is ‘English’, ironic I know. Michelle's father changed his religion to become Catholic to marry her Mum, but even so, being a 'mixed' family made for an interesting upbringing in Northern Ireland.
It was a fantastic place to grow up, a mixed community that helped and supported each other at the height of ‘The Troubles’. The only consolation was that her older sister and three older brothers were well-known in the town.
She met an Englishman, Tony Bowler, in Hull & East Yorkshire§ while visiting her sister way back in 1990. I, having served 2 years in Northern Ireland, instantly recognised Michelle’s accent. We were married at Downpatrick, not far from where I was based in NI. Again how ironic!
We are now settled in Hull & East Yorkshire. One of Michelle's first jobs was for a firm based on English Street making shortbread for The Queen, working for a boss called Mrs Ireland. How many ironic’s can there be.
It was definitely meant to be.
Michelle’s career mainly started at the North Hull Housing Action Trust based on the North Hull & East Yorkshire Estate providing office support and customer service for 5 yrs until the close of the trust; Michelle moved on to various office-based employment until she got involved as a home-based party plan organiser, where Michelle began to show her business/sales skills. She was promoted and started recruiting, training, and managing 32 women in the Hull & East Yorkshire area, holding monthly networking meetings, and successfully gaining a company car. After 3 yrs, Michelle returned to a senior clerical role with social services, providing support in children and adult services. This is when Michelle decided to learn more about vulnerable children and adults and gained a qualification at Hull & East Yorkshire uni.
Later, while working to support vulnerable young adults at Hull & East Yorkshire College, Michelle would hone her listening and empathy abilities, develop her nurturing and career development skills, and gain more qualifications.
There was never any doubt that Michelle was my perfect partner in life and for the Business Culture Hull & East Yorkshire. She's been alongside me since the off; I'm analytical; I'm direct, while Michelle sees the people!
It's a testament to the fact that Michelle gave up her career to join The Business Culture Hull & East Yorkshire in its infancy. So many people are drawn to her warmth, support, and sense of every member being valued and contributing.
