Prisoner rehabilitation and cutting edge IT wins award for Summit Media boss

HEDLEY Aylott, the managing director of East Yorkshire firm Summit Media, has been named “most innovative person in digital marketing” at the E-consultancy Innovation awards.

Mr Aylott received the accolade in recognition of his North Cliffe-based company’s growing reputation for developing cutting edge tools that deliver enhanced online sales performance and for his pioneering rehabilitation work teaching digital marketing skills to prisoners at nearby HMP Wolds.

Judges were also impressed with the firm’s in-house developed software tool Portfolio Manager, which improves the efficiency and performance of pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns.

Since forming in 2000, Summit has attracted an impressive collection of clients including Argos, Comet, Play.com, Eon, Microsoft, Mamas & Papas and Trinity Mirror.

Commenting on winning the award Mr Aylott said: “Digital marketing is one of the fastest developing industries around at the moment, so to be named most innovative person is fantastic recognition, not only for me, but also for the entire Summit team.”

The company has previously attracted praise for its rehabilitation work with inmates at HMP Wolds, where it has an office.

Eligible inmates are treated like any other employee and are paid a wage and receive bonuses for performance, quality of work and attitude, and are an integral part of the digital agency’s account team.

More than 250 prisoners have trained and worked for Summit since it was launched in 2000 and less than 10 inmates are known to have re-offended, which is a dramatic reduction on the national average.

The company is currently celebrating its most successful year yet, announcing a turnover of £23m representing a remarkable year-on-year increase of 50% for the past four years.

Summit Media is now also a Tech Track 100 Company, ranking it among Britain’s fastest-growing private technology companies, based on sales growth over the last three years.