Awards: QHotels; Skipton Building Society; Leeds Beckett University; Lupton Fawcett Denison Till
IAN GOULDING, finance director of Morley-headquartered QHotels, has been named UK Financial Director of the Year (Business) at the national Business Finance Awards 2016.
Mr Goulding was recognised for leading the financial restructuring of QHotels, alongside managing director Michael Purtill, as well as the acquisition and integration of six De Vere resorts into the group to create a £200m turnover business.
Mr Purtill said: “From myself and the whole QHotels family, we wish to congratulate Ian on his fantastic achievement. He has been an integral part of the success of the group over the last 12 years and this award entry recognises the significant contribution he has made to the business, in what has been a record-breaking year.”
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SKIPTON BUILDING SOCIETY has been shortlisted for a ‘Commitment to the Local Community Award’ for its Grassroots Giving programme.
The society’s community-funding scheme Grassroots Giving, which picked up two key awards in 2015 with Mortgage Finance Gazette and Corporate Engagement Awards, and has now been put forward for the Better Society Awards.
Grassroots Giving was launched in 2013 to celebrate the society’s 160th birthday and since then has donated a total of £241,500 to hundreds of small neighbourhood groups across the country.
The scheme will be running again in 2016, this time giving £500 pots to 163 groups.
Roy Prenton, of Skipton’s Grassroots Giving team, said: “We’re delighted to be shortlisted in the Better Society Awards. Grassroots Giving has already helped hundreds of small community gropups which might not normally attract any funding and we are looking forward to launching it in 2016.”
The winners will be announced on May 12.
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THE winners of a scheme to support small businesses and entrepreneurs have been announced by Leeds Beckett University.
The Business Advantage Awards, developed in partnership with Lupton Fawcett Denison Till Solicitors, offer a one-year support package worth up to £5,000 of mentoring and/or legal support to each winner.
The winners of this year’s awards were Phil Netherton, co-founder of travel company Euroventure, Digital Hub client Dave Turner of software development house Codera, and Leeds Beckett student and staff member Zainah Khan of Chakra Corporate, a corporate mental strength training programme.
Awards also went to Chris Hassall of uComply Risk Management, set up to help businesses in complying with food hygiene and health and safety requirements, and Paul Kaye of IntelliQA, which provides application delivery management and process integration solutions that enable IT teams to deliver and transform their business.
The awards were open to Leeds Beckett students, graduates and business clients of the University’s Enterprise and Innovation Academy (EIA) and the Digital Hub. Applicants to the awards had to submit a brief business plan and then deliver a 10-minute presentation on their business to an expert panel.
