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The Best of the Best Business Awards pride themselves on having a large panel of over 20 independent expert judges, we would like to introduce you to a few: |
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Sir Michael has a portfolio of businesses that operate across the communications spectrum, centred around corporate, political and institutional leadership. In essence, everything which is needed to build, protect and sustain reputation. Starting in advertising, Michael swiftly established his own business: LIVE; which became the largest independently owned live marketing company. Here he spearheaded the worldwide re-launch of British Airways and the Hong Kong Handover Ceremony. At LIVE, he was also involved in developing 'the story' for London's successful bid to host the London 2012 Olympic Games. This was closely followed by the winning campaigns for Sochi (2014 Winter Olympics) and Rio in 2016.
During the 1992 General Election campaign, he assumed leadership of the Conservative Party's presentation unit for Prime Minister John Major. After 15 years, his role concluded with the successful leadership campaign for Prime Minister David Cameron. He was director of the Golden Jubilee Concerts at Buckingham Palace in 2002 and has worked with the office of HRH the Prince of Wales since 2004. 2012 proved to be a momentous year with Michael having concluded his role of CEO on the Thames River Pageant in June, as well as chairing the companies which handled both the Royal launch of The Shard, and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. In September 2012 he was knighted for his work on the Diamond Jubilee.
Other large scale projects include the staging of the UK hosted G8 summit in Northern Ireland in June 2013, and the Opening Ceremony of the second Global Skills and Education Forum in Abu Dhabi in March 2014. Through his private office, he also works for a number of corporate leaders to assist them in the delivery of their transformation agendas and reputation management. He is a Director of The Oracle Cancer Trust at The Royal Marsden, and in his spare time, is a fanatical sports enthusiast, and ex-player of Leicester Tigers Rugby Club.
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Rami is an entrepreneur and social and political reformer. His business interests span from his principal company, Sun Mark, which is an international supermarket products marketing and distribution company, to interests in diverse fields ranging from shipping and beverage manufacturing to property development. Sun Mark is the only company to have been awarded the prestigious Queen's Award for Enterprise for five years running. Rami was awarded the IOD Director of the year for a Large Company in 2013 and the Global Icon Award for International Trade & Enterprise in 2014. He was also named the Man of the Year at the GG2 Leadership Awards presented by the Prime Minister, David Cameron. In his speech David Cameron singled out Rami as an example of how people can assimilate into British society and become highly successful and a role model for others.
In November 2012, Rami was asked to join the Princes Trust Enterprise Fellowship. The Fellowship is a collective of the UK's leading entrepreneurs which works to enable The Prince's Trust to reach young people and to pass on their experience and expertise to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs. Rami is also Chairman of the British Sikh Association.
In 2015 he was made a Freeman of the City of London in recognition of his charitable work and his support for British trade and industry. He recently donated £250,000 to The London Southbank University to help support and inspire student and graduates to engage in business. Rami received an MBE in 2005 and a CBE the 2016 New Year Honours List for services to business and community cohesion.
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Stuart is chairman of Beales department stores. He is also chairman of the furniture manufacturer and distributor Airsprung Group Plc. In his executive career, he was a managing director of UDS Group plc, which owned the Allders Department Stores, Richard Shops, John Collier and Timpson businesses. Subsequently, he joined Pearson plc, where he was chairman and chief executive of the Royal Doulton group. He has been chairman of the British Ceramic Confederation, the West Midlands Development Agency, Gartmore Absolute Growth and Income Trust PLC, The Wensum Company plc and the Development Board of King's College, Cambridge.
Stuart has served on the Ordnance Survey Review Committee, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, and as a parliamentary front-bench advisor on trade and industry, health and education, and transport and the environment. His publications on the privatisation of Royal Mail and the remodelling of the DTI as a Department for Business both proved influential. Recently, he founded the Entrepreneurship awards scheme at King's College, Cambridge.
In 1993 Stuart was awarded a CBE for services to the china industry.
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Michael was CEO of TelecityGroup plc, where he led the business from a market cap of £6m to Europe's leading Data Centre operator worth over £1.5bn. He is currently engaged in non-executive roles across 4 continents, helping businesses within the TMT space to drive growth and profitability both at an early stage and at exit level. Michael is on the board of tech companies Pacnet in Asia and DataPipe in the USA. He is also chairman of Ultrahaptics, the developer of ultrasonic free-space haptics technology. He is author of 'Forget Strategy. Get Results.: Radical Management Attitudes That Will Deliver Outstanding Success'.
In 2014 he was awarded an OBE by the Queen for Services to the Digital Economy. Michael has won multiple awards including the PwC Technology CEO of the Year and the EY Entrepreneur of the Year three years in a row. Michael is also engaged with many charities including being chairman of CEO Sleepout UK and of the Friends of the Loomba Foundation. In 2016 he will be completing 40 marathons in 40 consecutive days to raise £1m for the Princes Trust's 40th Anniversary year to help disadvantaged children.
When asked to talk about his 'radical' approach to management, Michael said: "When I wanted to encourage my team to break old patterns of thinking, I treated them to an unprotected swim with sharks. When I needed to diffuse tension between colleagues who had previously been bitter rivals, I took them up to the Arctic Circle where they had to huddle together to keep warm at night".
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