Two Yorkshire business leaders recognised for entrepreneurial successes
Business leaders from a Sheffield publishing firm and a Harrogate gas business have received awards for their entrepreneurial achievements.
Jonathan Seaton, the chief executive of Twinkl Education Publishing, based in Sheffield, and Jacqui Hall, managing director of Contract Natural Gas, based in Harrogate, were both winners at EY’s North of England Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards, held in Manchester last night.
Seaton won the Scale-up Award and was praised by judges for his inspirational leadership, who also said that he had displayed an outstanding business and entrepreneurial journey.
His business, Twinkl, is a specialist digital educational publisher, providing primary and secondary educators with one of the largest collections of high-quality digital teaching materials in the world. The firm also won a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade this week.
Hall, who won the Transformational Leader category, is managing director of CNG, an independent provider of natural gas for business. It is one of the fastest growing, privately-owned companies in the UK. In the last few years, the company has grown considerably with turnover more than tripling as demand for CNG’s products has steadily increased.
The judges described Hall as a leader who had transformed her industry with a full understanding of the whole business, which had resulted in terrific national growth and strong revenues.
Brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa, co-CEOs of Blackburn-based forecourt operator EG Group, based in Blackburn, were named EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 North overall winner.
Held at the Lowry Hotel in Manchester and hosted by presenter and broadcaster Jeremy Vine, the awards dinner honoured six business leaders across five categories (profiles below).
Each winner was judged and selected from 21 finalists leading 19 companies from across the North West, Yorkshire and North East.
All of the North of England winners will go on to represent the region at the UK finals held in London in November 2018, where the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year UK will be crowned. The UK country winner will then attend the ‘EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year’ in Summer 2019, which gathers the world’s most inspiring entrepreneurs from more than 60 countries.
