Connecting Companies & Facilitating New Business Opportunities. Information for Non-Members.

About Urbano 
Urbano has been bringing together company founders, senior directors and other senior professionals from SMEs to PLCs across all sectors to connect, engage, learn, share, and develop mutual opportunities since I created and ran my first business community in Shoreditch in the early 2000's.

There, I witnessed how important meeting new connections was to those creating and running fledgling tech companies, not only from a business development perspective in finding potential clients, but perhaps most importantly were the usually non-tangible benefits of being part of a wider community of different people.

Because actually when it comes to networking, what matters are the relationships that are formed between people. It is these relationships that lead to value and Urbano exists to primarily facilitate those conversations and introductions that lead to relationships and create the opportunities to learn, share and generate new business.

Top Tables
For our members, Urbano's primary role is to bring together those that create and lead SMEs, to meet, share knowledge and develop new business relationships in warm and relaxed surroundings, the highest of which are Top Tables.

Urbano Top Tables are hosted monthly in the private spaces of great restaurants. Previous Top Table host places include The Hide Piccadilly, Café Murano, Quo Vadis, Anise at Cinnamon, 110 de Taillevent, Cafe Du Marche, The Social Eating House, Kanishka by Atul Kocchar, Quaglinos and The Oxo Tower, amongst others.

A three-course lunch, complimentary drink and brilliant conversations between between 16 - 34 (max) company directors or equivalents.

Speaker events
Urbano hosts a regular programme of speaker and speaker panel networking breakfasts, where themes and subjects of interest are discussed. Recent subjects include commercial property outlook for 2026, speaker panel breakfasts on marketing, branding, AI and its uses, retrofit vs new buildings, menopause in the workplace and procurement, which is a particular passion and area where the Urbano team has experience and knowledge (see below).

We have also enjoyed hearing from Pano Christou, CEO of Pret A Manger, and the previous Lady Mayoress of the City of London, Florence King.

Our guest speakers have also included four out of the last five RIBA Presidents, George Clarke (twice!), Kevin McCloud and many others. For us, it also seems natural that our speakers reflect our audience, so we aim and achieve a target of 50% of our speakers to be women , as are 50% of our Top Table and other event attendees.

Upcoming Urbano events can be found here: Urbano Events Calendar

We also promote our members' own events to help them reach new audiences. You can find these events hereYou can find all upcoming Urbano events and those of our members here: Urbano Member Events Calendar

Tenders
Urbano offers our SME members access to our super affordable tenders service. We cover over 100 keywords relevant to our members' sectors and services. This is included in the Company membership price, equivalent to £7.50 a week.

Find the latest live tenders relevant to your services by using CTRL + F to search your keywords here: Tenders @ Urbano

Urbano is owned and run by Talent Lab, a work winning consultancy run by Mark and Caroline. Talent Lab helps companies of all sizes – from PLCs to SMEs - win work from the public sector. Caroline leads on this and she would be happy to discuss if and where she can help you and you company, from training for bid teams to operating as an outsourced bid department helping directors with positioning, engagement and bid writing etc.

Urbano - The Sustainable Business Network
We call Urbano  ‘The Sustainable Business Network’, not just because we have hosted speaker events on ‘sustainability’ stretching back to 2004 and challenged companies and individuals to make active changes on this front, but also because of our experience of bringing together those that create and run companies to help them adapt to the ever-changing challenges of running a successful enterprise. We believe it is the diversity of our member companies, our own experience of running a SME that celebrated its 20^th birthday earlier this year and the mix of people and events that makes Urbano unique.

We continue to press for SMEs to be given a fairer chance at winning public sector work, including as part of project supply chains. Videos and podcasts on our Only Connect channel are available to download on different topics, including procurement, building reg changes, workplace design, menopause in work, sustainability in construction, and networking.

Membership Options and Fees
Urbano has three levels of membership..

Micro: For those with fewer than five employees. Payable by DD monthly.
Company: Includes tenders. Unlimited representatives can book Urbano events. Includes tenders. Payable by monthly DD or annual invoice.
Corporate: As Company, but we promote their own events via links on our mailers – which reach 60,000+ subscribers – and on our website. Payable by invoice.

For fees and to find out which option would suit you best, click here: Urbano Membership

We are quite honest. Not all companies understand how we can generate opportunities when our events are so informal and even enjoyable. Many see networking events as a series of pitching opportunities for their sales teams. For us, they are the starting points for new relationships.

Our members will tell you how Urbano helps them, from single person start-ups to mature businesses employing hundreds.

As the spider in the middle of this web of companies called Urbano, I spend a lot of my time on Urbano facilitating introductions between members. You never know that conversation will lead to a new piece of work.That's why I run Urbano.

Because most opportunities in business and life come attached to people and are revealed through conversations, if you'd like to discuss being part of our community, I am more than happy to chat through options.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best


Mark Herring
Connector-In-Chief, Urbano Network

mark@urbanonetwork.co.uk