Our 2024 Judges
James Wright
Judes Ice Cream
CEO
Amanda Dorel
Lloyds Bank
Regional Director SME, South, Business & Commercial Banking
Declan Curry
Alex Evans
Talint
Managing Director
Steve Hyde
Exec360
CEO
Saira Demmer
SF Recruitment
CEO
Katerina Garyfalou
Clean Planet Group
VP
Tim Smith
RICS
Head of Sustainability
Charlotte Roche
Opus Technology
Finance Director
Ezekiel Johnson
Global Purpose Enterprise
Director of Community and Engagement
Diana Florescu
mediaforgrowth
CEO & Founder
Carmina Lees
Accenture
Managing Director - Financial Services, UKI
Sam McAllister
Scoops
Founder & Author
Donna O’Toole
August Recognition
Alexander Leader
City of London Corporation
Miles Nolan
Sterling Investments
Director
Abdul Shiil
Sahan Cares CIC
Co-Founder & Director
Andre Spence
Global Purpose Enterprise
CEO
Sophie Milliken MBE
Moja
CEO
Scott English
Elite Business
Brand Director
Shehzad Chaudhary
Department for Business and Trade
Midlands Director for International Trade & Investment
Allyson Stewart-Allen
International Marketing Partners
CEO
Paul Morrison
Zoom
UK&I Education Lead
Sajag Patel
Solassas Drinks
Founder/Investor
Julie Devonshire OBE
Kings Business School
Genevieve Morris
Blick Rothenberg
Partner and Head of Corporate Tax
Carl Williamson
UK Export Finance
Co-Head of Business Group and Interim Director, SME & Trade Finance
Andrew Webb
Connectopia
Founder
Ele Theochari
Blick Rothenberg
Partner
Jo Overton
Lloyds Bank
Managing Director, Customer Propositions & Strategy, Business & Commercial Banking
Jo has worked at Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) for over 15 years since originally joining as a graduate. She has undertaken a number of roles across product management, proposition development and strategy. She’s passionate about creating diverse, high performing teams and translating strategy into action.
Her current role is MD Customer Propositions and Strategy for the Business and Commercial Bank, leading teams responsible for defining the overall strategy for LBG’s business customers (up to £100m turnover) and developing propositions and programmes to support businesses meet their needs and achieve their goals.
She puts the customer at the heart of the conversation, leading the Customer Experience team dedicated to understanding how we can improve our products and services as well as pushing forward our Social Sustainability agenda to support under-represented groups and communities in the UK.
Oliver Winters
Fever-Tree
Global Communications Director
Jez Filley
Partner and Head of Audit, Accounting and Outsourcing
Natalie Calvert
CX High Performance
Founder & Chief Executive
Chris Blackhurst
Independent
Chris Blackhurst is an award-winning writer, author, commentator and an expert in strategic communications.
He is a former editor of The Independent newspaper and for ten years was City editor of the Evening Standard. Before that he worked for The Sunday Times, on its business pages and Insight investigative team. He covered Westminster for several years for The Independent. His journalism has appeared in many of the world’s major publications, newspapers and magazines. For 20 years, he conducted the main interviews in Management Today magazine with senior business and political figures. He is an experienced TV and radio broadcaster.
He has written two books: Too Big To Jail - Inside HSBC, the Mexican drug cartels and the greatest banking scandal of the century (Macmilllan) and The World’s Biggest Cash Machine –Manchester United, the Glazers and the struggle for football’s soul (Macmillan)
For four years, he was executive director of CT Group, the international campaigns and public affairs consultancy. He was ranked in the Top Ten for UK ‘Crisis and Reputational’ advice by PR Week.
Paul Hemsley
Lloyds Bank
Dax Lovegrove
Andy McCulloch
Lloyds Bank
Head of Growth Analytics & Sustainbility
Andy McCulloch has worked for Lloyds Bank for 29 years across customer relationship management, credit risk, product development and environmental sustainability. Andy heads up the Environmental Sustainability team within the Lloyds Bank Business and Commercial Banking division, with team responsibilities including ESG data build, NZBA and Financed Emissions targets, ESG finance products, and sustainability propositions and tools for customers.
Kathryn Herrington
Suse
Kathryn is an international CPO/CHRO with over 25 years’ experience in financial services and technology. Partnering with CEO’s, Boards and Executive teams she has a track record in driving organizational transformation, talent strategy, cultural re-engineering and leadership development in both growth and regulated environments.
Most recently, Kathryn was Chief People officer at SUSE, a Private Equity backed B2B software company. Prior to that she spent nearly a decade as Chief People Officer and then Chief Administrative Officer at CLS, the world’s leading provider of multi-lateral netting and FX settlement services for over 70 of the world’s leading financial institutions. Managing a global team from New York, she oversaw the company's people agenda as well its external and internal communications, PR, workplace services management and administration functions.
Prior to CLS Group, Kathryn held senior HR roles in a range of global financial institutions, including Merrill Lynch, HSBC and Bank of America Corporation where her experience straddled wealth management, banking and global markets sales and trading.
Kathryn has spent her career in international, complex businesses in both public (NYSE, FTSE, DAX) and private markets and has extensive long-term transatlantic experience with dual US/UK nationality. She is currently based in London, having operated out of New York from 2002 to 2018.
Heather Blundell
Grayling
CEO
Malli Kini
Blick Rothenberg
Partner
“Empowering entrepreneurs with bespoke tax and strategic advice, I turn complexities into clear, actionable insights, helping both founders and their businesses to thrive and reach their full potential”
Malli provides tax advice to entrepreneurs (across their personal and company matters), other high-net-worth individuals, shareholders, trusts and family offices and is also the lead for the entrepreneurs practice at the firm. Although Malli is a tax specialist at heart, he spends much of his time acting as a sounding board for clients on both tax and non-tax/commercial matters.
In addition to giving his clients access to the Blick Rothenberg suite of services (through one point of contact) he will look at the wholistic picture to introduce them, as needed, to his third-party network of advisors such as debt advisors, investors, corporate financiers, lawyers, trustees and bankers.
Before joining Blick Rothenberg as a Partner in March 2024, Malli spent over 15 years in the Big 4 (PwC and EY) within their London private client teams. Prior to that, he had an entirely different career as an orthopaedic surgeon in the NHS.
Carmela Coop Rodia
What Else Events
Event Director
Michael Boyle
Upholstery2U
Managing Director
Mike Southon
Leah Boxell
Enablists
CEO / Founder
Alan Smith
Kathrn Milner
Jessica Barwell
20/20 Levels
Business Mentor
Lorena Szerman
Andy Webb
Markus Hoevekamp
Adson AS
Founder & CEO
Christine Foster
Liza Tullidge
NETĀ
Founder
David Higgins
eg360consulting
Joost De Kruiff
THR Capital
Co-Founder & Director
Heather Melville
Natasha Devon
Tom Bohills
Founders Law
Founder and Principal
Elisabeth Ling
Livingbridge
Product Advisor
Jon Briggs
The Showstealers
Founder
Veronica Still
Rebecca Harrap
Department for Business and Trade
Business Engagement Manager
Cynthia Davis
Diversifying Jobs
Co-Founder
Francesca Pittaway
notonthehighstreet
Commercial Director
Chris Bruce
Rachael Cook
Moja
COO
Ruby Raut
WUKA
CEO and Co-founder