Bath marketing agency Mr B & Friends’ founder Simon Barbato is to compete at national level in the coveted Institute of Directors (IoD) 2016 Director of the Year Awards.
Simon, pictured, was named South West IoD Director of the Year at last month’s regional IoD Director of the Year awards.
He will now go head-to-head against other regional winners in the Small and Medium-sized Company Director category at the national awards ceremony in London on October 21.
Simon launched Mr B & Friends in a bedroom 10 years ago. Today it the city’s largest firm of its kind and one of the fastest-growing in the region, employing 36 people.
Clients include blue-chip companies such as Intercontinental Hotel Group, Principality Building Society, Unite Students and SSE.
Simon, who was previously highly commended at the regional awards, was praised by the judges, who said that since then his strong entrepreneurial approach and progressive risk-taking had really paid off. They singled out his investment in people and process, led by passion for the brand.
Also in the running for a national award is Brady George, managing director of Keynsham-based facilities management company Almeda Facilities, who will be challenging other hopefuls for the Corporate Responsibility award.
Also representing the South West will be Mark Crutchley, director of Circadian Trust, a social enterprise that delivers sport and leisure facilities in partnership with South Gloucestershire Council (Third Sector), James Piper, commercial director of Aztec West-based Ecosurety, a company enabling its members to meet UK and EU waste obligations, (Young Director) and Andrew Robinson, managing director of Arc Energy Resources, near Gloucester (Family Business).
The IoD Director Awards seek to highlight and celebrate outstanding business people across the country, bringing the enterprise community together and focusing UK-wide attention on the regions.
IoD South West chairman Nick Sturge said: “In these times of political and economic upheaval – locally and globally – strong, entrepreneurial, resilient and informed leadership is essential to any organisation and the calibre of our awards winners demonstrates the strength of the region and should give us optimism for a positive future.
“Once again we had an extremely high standard of entries demonstrating the breadth and depth of talent, enterprise and leadership across the South West.
“The fact that all our regional winners have been shortlisted is testament to the quality of those entries and although it is always a highly fought contest, we hope we see a national award being brought back here.”
Pictured: Brady George with his Corporate Responsibility award surrounded by colleagues from Almeda. Photo by Clint Randall of Pixel Photography Ltd.
