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MITIE Group chief executive Ruby McGregor-Smith has been nominated for the Orange Leader of the Year award.
Ruby joined the Bristol firm in 2002 and was appointed as CEO in 2007. During her tenure, the business has grown from £500m in revenues to nearly £2bn, witnessing its entry into the FTSE-250 and profits reaching in excess of £100m.
MITIE’s employee numbers have also tripled over that period to more than 62,000 people – making he group one of the UK’s largest private sector employers.
The Orange Leader of the Year accolade recognises and rewards innovation and excellence in business leadership.
Announcing the nominees, Martin Stiven, vice president of business at Orange, said: “The Orange Leader of the Year award recognises exceptional leadership skills from a wide range of business sectors, across public, private and third sector. Businesses that have performed the best over this very challenging year are those with exceptional leaders at the helm.
“Orange believes that leadership can mean different things to different people. That’s why the public vote is so important – everyone has a say in what they believe to be great leadership and have the chance to vote for who they truly admire.”
Ruby is up against Julian Dunkerton, founder of successful Cheltenham-based youth fashion retailer SuperGroup as well as Dr Mike Lynch, CEO of computer group Autonomy Corporation, Ian Tyler, CEO of construction group Balfour Beatty, and Jasmine Whitbread, International CEO of Save the Children
Chaired by Baroness Virginia Bottomley of Nettlestone, both the judging and public vote will carry equal weight in the final award decision and the winner will be announced at the National Business Awards gala dinner, organised by UBM plc, at the Grosvenor House, London on Tuesday, November 8, where Chancellor George Osborne will deliver this year’s welcome address.
“The economic climate continues to present UK businesses with an unprecedented challenge: it is therefore particularly encouraging that the entries in this year’s National Business Awards have shown no drop in quality or performance,” said Baroness Bottomley.
The Orange Leader of the Year accolade was launched in 2009 when it was awarded to Peter Marks, CEO, the Co-operative Group; the current title holder and 2010 award winner is Martin McCourt, CEO of Dyson
Visit www.nationalbusinessawards.co.uk/voteorange to vote for your Orange Leader of the Year 2011 – voting is open to midnight on October 28.
