After much deliberation, the verdicts of the judges in the Northamptonshire Business Excellence Awards (NBEAs) and the Northamptonshire Education Awards (NEAs) are in.
Both sets of judges spoke about the high quality of entries in the 14 categories in the NBEAs and the 12 categories in the NEAs. The winners will be announced at the NBEAs on November 10 at the County Ground, when comedian, actor and presenter Paddy McGuinness will be the host; and the NEA winners will be announced the following evening, at the Park Inn Northampton, where TV personality Eamonn Holmes will do the honours.
The judges for the NBEAs were:
Nick Hewer: former star of TV’s The Apprentice, whose long associations with Alan Sugar began when his PR company first represented Alan Sugar’s Amstrad in the 1980s. Nick headed up this year’s judging panel.
Rachel Mallows: the Northamptonshire businesswoman who founded The Mallows Company, which supports SMEs, charities, public sector organisations and larger businesses with training, coaching, mentoring and business support.
Shalom Lloyd: the founder of Naturally Tribal Skincare, which is built on valuing healthy ethical and sustainable living whilst empowering women in Nigeria who provide the firm with its key ingredient, shea butter.
Ian Nicholas: Global Managing Director of Reed, one of the largest recruitment companies in the world, who is based at the company’s Northampton headquarters.
Nick Hewer said: “It has been a long, day, I can tell you, not just the number of exceptional nominations but the variety, and trying to compare one against another and coming up with winners – not all of which were clear.”
The judges for the NEAs were:
Laura Giddings: CEO of The STEM Project, Laura has ten years’ experience in the STEM/education sector.
Amarjit Singh Atwal: alongside a career in the logistics sector, Amarjit devotes a great deal of time to volunteering with several organisations working to tackle poverty and inequality.
Naomi Edwards: Marketing Executive at Wilson Browne Solicitors, Naomi is active in the law firm’s social responsibility space, through which she is committed to finding and supporting local good causes.
John Sinclair: Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology at The University of Northampton, John is an active STEM ambassador who champions the role of the university in providing enrichment activities in schools.
Ian Nicholas said: “This is the first year I’ve been a judge but my fellow judges assured me that the standard was particularly high this year, and every category generated a lot of debate.”
Ben Thomas, Managing Director of All Things Business, said: “We’re incredibly grateful to all our judges for their hard work coming up with the winners in what, by all accounts, has been a fantastic set of entries this year. We’re now very excited for the awards ceremonies and can’t wait to see the winners pick up their awards and celebrate their success with the Northamptonshire business community.”
