After last night's glittering ceremony at the Natural History Museum, the winners of the 2002 Accountancy Age awards have been named. Scroll down the page to see who came out on top on night of stars. Click on winner's names to read a profile of each winner.
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Personality of the Year John Ormerod ‘I hope that people who deal with us don’t think we’re shifty,’ Andersen’s then UK senior partner John Ormerod told Accountancy Age back in February as the UK firm sought to distance itself from those events in Houston late last year.A few days earlier he had appeared on Newsnight and was on the receiving end of a grilling that, at times, made for decidedly uncomfortable viewing. Back to top |
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Small Firm Trustient This year’s small firm winner has managed to show a tremendous growth in profit during a period of massive transition for the business – but has still managed to closely look after its most valuable clients.Trustient started its life as London-based practitioners Jessa & Co in 1990, but decided to change its name as the firm shifted focus. It had to beat off tough competition from Cameron Baum, Mitchells and Raffingers to clinch the prestigious title.Back to top |
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Medium Firm Clement Keys A clear demonstration of how a firm has added significant value to clients was just one of the factors that judges of this year’s Medium Firm of the Year Award were looking out for.And in Clement Keys, a six-partner practice based in the West Midlands, they saw it in spades. Back to top |
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Large Firm Johnston Carmichael It’s been an interesting year for Scots firm Johnston Carmichael. This year it entered into our Large Firm category, a brand new class in the awards, and won it convincingly with judges saying the firm was definitely adding value to clients.With the Large Firm category making its debut it was always going to be tough for the judging panel to make a decision, but there was little doubt that Johnston Carmichael should take home the prize..Back to top |
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Big Four Firm PricewaterhouseCoopers The past 12 months will be forever remembered as a time of great upheaval in the world of accountancy and business.PricewaterhouseCoopers this year finally toppled Ernst & Young from its long-held pole position to become the Big Four firm of the Year at the Accountancy Age Awards for Excellence.In the wake of this year’s myriad US accounting scandals, it has been PwC’s voice that has sounded the loudest.Back to top |
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Accountant of the Year David Bloom The Accountant of the Year is among the most significant of our awards. It’s designed to recognise accountancy’s rising stars – whether they work in business, practice or the public services.In David Bloom the judges found a winner who had demonstrated sound judgement and technical skill along with innovation and leadership ability. Working for Getty Images, the commercial picture library that describes itself as the world’s leading imagery company, Bloom led a cross-border finance team responsible for migrating more than 20 different acquisitions by the business each with their own financial systems and processes onto one common system with standard processes.Back to top |
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Accounting Technician Becky Brabrook When it comes to awards, it is always an enormous pleasure to reward the back-room staff. There are plenty of glamour jobs around that attract attention, even in accountancy, but when it comes to keeping the wheels turning and making sure the leg-work is done it is the people far from the limelight who are the lynchpins.One of those people is Becky Brabrook, winner of Accounting Technician of the Year in the 2002 Accountancy Age Awards.Back to top |
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Finance Team Enterainment UK Entertainment UK, Europe’s largest distributor of home entertainment products, had a hard act to follow after the prestigious accolade for Accountancy Age Finance Team of the Year went to the Eden Project last year. But follow they did.Our judges found Entertainment UK’s finance team ‘stood out overall’ against its shortlisted rivals..Back to top |
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Public Services Achievement David Leather By winning the Public Services Achievement Award, David Leather, finance director and deputy chief executive of the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, demonstrated that having access to large amounts of public money was not a recipe for scandal and controversy.Leather, also the joint winner of the Accountancy Age Finance Director of the Year Award, ensured the world’s third biggest sporting event was an unqualified sporting and financial success, with public funds being wisely invested in excellent and sustainable sporting venues, and the event itself enthusiastically supported by the British public.Back to top |
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Financial director of the year David Leather andChris Woodhouse It is not hard to see why David Leather, finance director and deputy chief executive of the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games shares this year’s award.Under the harsh glare of the media spotlight, the games were a resounding success in every aspect – they were the largest and most successful multi-sports event ever held in the UK, involving 6,000 athletes, watched by 800,000 spectators and a television audience of one billion.Joint winner was Chris Woodhouse, finance director of the successful DIY store Homebase.Since it was acquired from J. Sainsbury in a management buyout in March of last year, Homebase has increased like-for-like sales by 11.6%, seen profits soar by 169% and reduced net debt by £219m.Back to top |
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ACCA New Accountant Philip Beckett ACCA’s New Accountant of the Year Award goes this year to Phillip Beckett, a forensic accounting manager at BDO Stoy Hayward in London’s Baker Street.The 27-year-old, who lives in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, achieved the highest mark in the world in ACCA’s December 2001 final examinations, winning the institute’s gold medal. He managed to beat 15,000 other students from around the world who sat each of the final three papers. Back to top |
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CIMA New Accountant John Hunter Brown John Hunter Brown has been chosen as this year’s winner of the CIMA New Accountant of the Year award.Hunter Brown, 25, was elected to CIMA membership in March of this year, less than two months after he received his final level exam results. He had previously undertaken the arduous process of qualifying for CIMA in under two years, a remarkable achievement, especially given the high level of his exam results. Hunter Brown has the Royal Bank of Scotland’s training arm, which is a certified CIMA Quality Partner, partly to thank for this, for supporting him ably throughout his two years of training.Back to top |
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Annual Report & Accounts: Business Geest One half of the UK population either won’t cook or can’t cook for themselves.That is one of the startling facts revealed in this year’s winner of Business Annual Report and Accounts award.Geest, the UK’s leading food manufacturer, has capitalised on this lack of culinary skill to build a company that has grown and prospered in the challenging, fast-moving and innovative food market in which it operates.Back to top |
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Annual Report & Accounts: Public sector Companies House The winner of Accountancy Age’s first Public and Voluntary Sector Annual Report and Accounts Award is entirely appropriate: Companies House, the Department of Trade and Industry’s company information registrar.Accountancy Age created this award this year to highlight the importance of transparency in the public and voluntary sector given that the demands of public and voluntary organisations’ accounts are less stringent but can divulge more than private companies, as they do not have to guard business secrets against competitors.Back to top |
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E-business innovation Salford E-Commerce Solutions Salford E-Commerce Solutions, a subsidiary of the University of Salford, has beaten off stiff competition from last year’s winner, Dragnet, to scoop Accountancy Age’s 2002 E-Business Innovation of the Year Award.The university impressed the judges with its Higher Education E-Procurement ‘The HEeP Marketplace’ initiative. The aim of HEeP is to be the primary internet marketplace for e-procurement activity in higher education. The sector comprises more than 170 universities and colleges, with a combined annual spend of £4.5bn.Back to top |
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Accounting Software: Off-the-Shelf Simply Books The off-the-shelf accounting software industry is extremely important to the small business market place, and as a result was fiercely contested in this year’s Accountancy Age Awards.In the end Simply Books caught the eye of the judges because of its simple approach to the problem and its customer service. One of the judges on the panel said Simply Books ‘goes out of its way to make sure everyone is happy with the product’.Back to top |
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Accounting Software: Mid-Range Squaresum After three years at the top of its range Exchequer Software has finally been toppled from its position as mid-range software provider of the year by a package that had the judges very excited.DREAM by SquareSum may have missed out in other years but the company’s ethos of financial software for accountants by accountants has paid off at last, beating off the challenge from both Exchequer and Microsoft Business Solutions.Back to top |
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Accounting Software: Enterprise Systems CODA CODA has made it two years in a row by scooping the 2002 Accountancy Age Award for Best Enterprise Software Package, with its real-time CODA-Financials, beating off stiff competition from OpenAccounts and Comshare.Last year CODA also won for CODA Financials – a package that combines the power of the internet, collaborative commerce and business analytics, to provide companies with self-service accounting, e-procurement, e-collaboration and business intelligence across the enterprise.Back to top |