This is an excerpt from chief exec John Anderson’s speech at the 2011 Annual Conference, made in response to the critical media coverage of Scotland’s entrepreneurial record, and delivered with a call for action.

“They say that timing is everything and when we came up with the idea for our PSYBT session for the annual conference a few months ago, little did we know that a big story would emerge which would provide the perfect context for this session.

On Monday the GEM 2010 Report was launched and parts of it made pretty depressing reading – and the media was not slow to report the bad news: Reporting Scotland on Monday, Good Morning Scotland, the Herald and the Scotsman on Tuesday.

Headlines like “The Last Tycoons”, “Lost Generation”, “Lack of Young Entrepreneurs”.

Well the GEM Report is, in its own world, accurate but it is not our world.

“Lost Tycoons” [Herald] – shows six familiar faces. But what about the 250 people at the Exchange conference, and the other 180 members not able to attend?

“Lost Generation” [The Scotsman] – What about the 10,000 businesses supported with £35m by PSYBT in the last 22 years? The 600 PSYBT businesses funded every year? The 200 PSYBT growth fund businesses supported since 2002?

I don’t recognise the picture that GEM paints, but it is a snapshot of what the general population of Scotland thinks. So perhaps we need to better communicate the real picture. Perhaps the Exchange should shout a bit more. Not the rent-a-gob nonsense that you see from some of the business organisations, but some well-chosen fact-based comments with case studies – examples of real success at all levels.

We know that the impact of Exchange members is significant – £23bn, 200,000 employees across 430 members and a similar impact exercise is just being completed by PSYBT to be launched shortly.

But here’s a sneak preview: the top 100 best performing businesses that have received PSYBT funding and support have collective revenue of £124m and employ 1,300 people – it’s a great example of what can be achieved by ambitious young entrepreneurs in Scotland with the right kind of support.

We’ve got work to do to demonstrate that entrepreneurship is alive and well and growing in Scotland.

(You can also hear the Good Morning Scotland radio interview with John Anderson on our Boo link to the left of this blog)

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