Queens Award's Winners' Takeaways: Recent Episodes
Ally Nimmo
The Queen's Award for Enterprise is the ultimate British business award. The winners are the best in their field and The Queen's Awards Takeaway gives you the opportunity to learn from the people behind these companies.
Here we meet Guy McEvoy, the founder of GuyKat, an e-learning agency, that aimed and did change e-learning for their clients.
Recognizing the dullness and unattractiveness of e-learning, GuyKat set out to change the game and now creates e-learning which is an exciting, immersive journey for learners and as a consequence, now works for some of the biggest brands in the world.
www.guykat.com/
In this King's Awards Winners' podcast, we meet Stuart Broadley, CEO of the Energies Industries Council (EIC).
Now celebrating its 80th year, the EIC was established during the Second World War to represent British companies operating in the oil and gas sector.
Stuart’s undisguised passion for the EIC has grown it into a worldwide trade association with 900 members operating in the energy industry.
In this discussion, we discover the role of the EIC and how Stuart and his team’s vision enabled the international growth of the council.
The EIC
In this King's Awards Winners' podcast, we meet Mark Smith, founder of Ada, the National College for Digital Skills. Mark, a graduate of Harvard opened the doors to Ada, named after Ada Lovelace and a 19th-century pioneer of computing, with the objective of using tech skills to address social inequality.
Partnered by Tom Fogden, the road that Mark embarked upon to open the first further education college in England for 20 years brought him into contact with Prime Minister David Cameron as well as hundreds of young people whose life Ada has been able to transform.
Ada
Making the world's first carbon-positive gin from peas and a potato that cooks quickly are just two of the sustainability projects that The James Hutton Institute (JHI) has been involved in.
In this podcast, we meet JHI's Chief Exec, Colin Campbell and Stefan Jindra, the Institute's sustainability coordinator to hear about the Hutton Institute's sustainability journey and some of the sustainability projects they have been involved with across the world.
The James Hutton Institute
Sackers a family business can trace its origins back to the 1920s when David Dodds, the current CEO, forebears would collect waste from the householders of Ipswich which they would then sell on.
Almost 100 years later, with thousands of pounds of investment in the latest recycling technologies, Sackers have clients all over the world and a King’s Award for International Trade which as they sell metals, they view as a hallmark of quality.
David, let’s start at the very beginning. What sort of ‘things would your great-grandparents have been collecting and selling to their customers.
Sackers
Reach out to David
A chance meeting between Lucy Goff, a former journalist, and an academic in a Geneva clinic led to the formation of LYMA Life, a multi-million pound, global company which counts Hollywood stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Hudson and Kim Kardashian among its customers.
Hear how illness and tenacity disrupted the supplement industry
LYMA Life
Ed Caldecott, a serial entrepreneur, is the visionary behind Whoosh Media, a travel tech company based in the UK. The company has garnered multiple awards for its cutting-edge real-time information services, which are tailored to keep passengers informed while they travel.
Here Ed shares his inspiration for this innovative system and recounts the journey, often with delays, the company took to get to this stage which is not the end of the line for them.
whooshmedia.co.uk
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Carina Evans, rocks and is not afraid of risk and I am not alluding to risk in business but physical risk. Carina was the first women to complete the Cresta run in St Moritz, she represented GB in Skeleton both of which involve hurtling down an ice track at speeds that are illegal on most roads.
She also enjoys surfing, and climbing in the Pyrenees and is an officer in the British Army.
The reason we caught up with Carina is that her company Podium Pet Products has just won a King’s Award for International Trade to add to The Queen’s Award they already had on the mantle piece.
Podium Pet's award-winning product is the Dog Rock which stops dog pee from ruining lawns.
Samantha Graham could help you find your next, motivated, and trusted employee!
Sam runs Clean Sheet UK, a Queen's Award-winning charity that helps ex-offenders find employment.
Since its launch, Clean Sheet has helped over a thousand people to get a job and turn their lives around.
Broaden your recruitment horizons with Sam Graham and Clean Sheet.
www.cleansheet.org.uk/
This Queen’s Award Winners’ podcast with Emma Heathcote-James, has all the excitement of a prime-time soap opera.
Listen in to hear how a search for soap that wouldn’t dry her skin and her Gran were two of the catalysts that led to Little Soap Company.
This is an inspirational journey, that’s taken Emma’s soaps from stalls at Farmers' markets to the aisles of major retailers.
Throughout this odyssey. Emma has remained true to her eco values.
www.littlesoapcompany.co.uk
In this podcast, we hear from Tommy Cook, the founder and CEO of Calnex Solutions, who produces test equipment for the global telecoms sector.
Becoming an entrepreneur was never in Tommy's game plan. On becoming redundant in 2006, his plan was to run the start-up until he could find another engineering job.
He never did find that job as you can hear and the result is Calnex a multi-national company being run from central Scotland.
This is the story of how fidgeting with a Bic pen gave the Quinn brothers an idea that is changing how burst water pipes are fixed.
Listen in to dive deep with Michael Quinn of Qinov8 who talks about the brilliant idea that would become the Aquapea.
https://qinov8.com/
Wanis is a multi-million-pound world food business that supports communities in the UK, the Caribbean, and West Africa. This support is something that's not just ingrained in the culture of the company it's in its DNA.
Wanis' commercial director, George Phillips, takes us through the company's 50-year history that started in London's East End.
Discover Wanis at https://www.wanis.com/our-roots/
and link into George at https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-phillips-49a86314/
Tajinder Banwait, Founder and Managing Director of Urban Apothecary London has a nose for business. Her love of scent was kindled working on the perfume counter of a department store. Find out how this love blossomed into an award-winning multinational scent company - Urban Apothecary London.
urbanapothecarylondon.com
How would you address a skills shortage in your sector? Faced with this issue, Shaun McCarthy started a school.
50,000 members and ten years later the Supply Chain School is used by the largest and the smallest businesses in the construction sector to take steps to reduce their impact on the environment.
Be inspired by Shaun’s vision, his achievements, and his impact on business practice.
Here we talk to Daniel Walton founder of international outdoor leisure company Olpro, who has bought camper vans for the staff and encourages them to get out of town and into the wilds which he is committed to protecting and so far has planted over 7000 trees.
Here Daniel also reveals how the blandness of tents and awnings spurred him on to start Olpro and add some colour.
Daniel also discusses how Brexit allowed Olpro to get ahead of its competitors and how customer feedback is the foundation of their innovation.
https://olproshop.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-walton-89236a20/
Matt Dyson and his brother-in-law, have built Rockit, a multinational company, in just five years with only two employees!
Find out how a child that just wouldn't sleep inspired the Rockit Roller an infant's sleep aid that very quickly went on to change the lives of parents suffering from sleep deprivation across the world.
This is a great story. Let's Rockit Roll!!
“I used to hide my van so my customers couldn’t see it” said Darren Wilkinson, founder and managing director of water treatment service company Vexo.
Listen in as Darren leads us through his personal journey to build Vexo.
A journey that required a tough skin, grit, belief in the product, team work, national and international recognition.
https://www.vexoint.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-wilkinson-96062635/
Become a master of innovation.
In this edition of Queen's Awards Winners' Takeaway, we meet Mark Davies, innovator, learner, author, and founder of Queen's Award-winning company ThinkOTB.
Mark, who has guided companies from across the globe to become successful innovators, explains how innovation can be taught and leads us through his 5 stage process of innovation.
https://www.outsidethebox.co.uk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markdaviesotb/
In this discussion about growing your sales internationally, we learn from Jennifer MacKenzie, co-founder of The TEFL.org, a provider of training for those wanting to teach English as a foreign language, and Jack Hopper, Partner and one of the founders, of AgbioInvestor, a leading source of global crop protection market information and analysis on why adaptability and payment are elements that should be at the fore of your exporting strategy.