Nicola's passion for work wins top prize
Perseverance, an appetite for a challenge, and a sense of humour – these are key qualities embodied by this year's Personalities of the Year.
Judges were inundated with strong candidates for this title, and picking an overall winner proved a difficult task.
But in the end, the panel settled on a woman who has helped steer her organisation through a number of changes and towards ever-greater success, with the force of her personality.
Nicola Youern, chief executive of Southern Focus Trust which provides housing and care for people around Hampshire, scooped the award.
She told BusinessWeek: 'I feel incredibly proud. I absolutely love my job to bits, I do my work with a passion and it's a passion about the lives of very vulnerable people, the thousands and thousands we help every year.
'I've a staff of 450 that inspire me every day. Because every day they get up, and change someone's life, and what better reason is there to get up and go to work every day?'
Another outstanding achiever was Stella Mbubaegbu, the principal of Highbury College, who could not attend because she was in Nigeria.
Instead, her accolade was accepted by Deborah See, executive director of the community college, who paid tribute to her.
She told BusinessWeek: 'Stella's very supportive, she welcomes new ideas. She's a real thinker, and she gets people to examine what they're doing and think about how we can be successful in what we're doing.'
Lisa Lavis, of marketing firm Glow, was highly commended after being nominated by colleagues for the category.
She said: 'I think it's fantastic, I'm really chuffed to bits. It's incredible, especially because I had no idea that my team was doing it.'
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