THAMES VALLEY BUSINESS MAGAZINE
AWARDS 2011 Celebrating the region’s business success
More than 350 of the Thames Valley’s top business leaders crowded into Reading’s Royal Berkshire Conference Centre on the evening of November 17) to mark the 17th annual Thames Valley Business Magazine Awards.
The glittering black tie occasion, with VIP guest speaker Lord Digby Jones, proved a resounding success as both familiar names and new faces vied to see who would walk away with one of the six prestigious trophies.
David Murray, Awards chairman and publisher of The Business Magazine, paid tribute to the quality of entries saying: “Tonight we welcome 36 finalists – representing sectors from IT and manufacturing to recruitment and retail. You are the shortlisted companies that judges have chosen from an impressive stack of entries this year.
“Your companies fly the flag for this region of ours, the Thames Valley, the powerhouse of enterprise, entrepreneurism and corporate endeavour.”
There was a special thank you for the generous support of the six sponsors - Pitmans, Deloitte, Vail Williams, DediPower, The Royal Bank of Scotland and James Cowper – before Murray handed over to award-winning business journalist and host for the evening, Nadine Dereza.
“Tonight is all about celebrating your success and it is a wonderful showcase for the best companies in the region,” she told the audience. “I am a massive fan of your region. The Thames Valley has been saving the economic bacon for some time, thanks to a thriving local economy and a great deal of entrepreneurism and innovation.”
Dereza then introduced guest of honour Lord Digby Jones, former director general of the CBI and well-known champion of British industry.
In an entertaining and straight-talking speech, he gave an overview of his appointment by Gordon Brown to the role of minister of state for UK trade and investment, and his campaigning work to promote British industry at home and abroad, which included visits to 31 countries in 45 overseas trips in just 15 months.
“You are the most important part of our society. The only way to get out of the current situation will to be trade our way out, generating enough growth to create the taxation and the jobs to do it,” he said. “You can’t do that without successful businesses.
“Tonight is a celebration of just how good you can be if you wish and I am thrilled to bits to be part of it.”
He emphasised the importance of learning basic skills, such as numeracy, and called on businesses to do more to link with schools, colleges and universities to offer training and apprenticeships for tomorrow’s generation of employees.
“As successful companies we owe it to them to reach out and help take people to a place where they can achieve. We are the wealth creators and we need to be doing things in a way that we take the whole of society with us,” he concluded.
The chosen charity for the evening was Brain Tumour Research, which boosted its funds by over £2,400 from an envelope collection, with a magnum of champagne going to Austin Fraser for the most generous donation from one table.
Full details of the awards winners and finalists appear on the following pages.
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