Revenue chairman beats off competition.

Inland Revenue chairman Nick Montagu is the Accountancy Age Personality of the Year 2001.

Since his appointment as chairman of the Revenue board in 1997, Sir Nicholas, as he is now more appropriately known, has led an unprecedented amount of change – not least this year’s decision to retire Hector, the longstanding public face of the Revenue, and replace him with Father Ted’s Mrs Doyle.

Sir Nicholas was presented with the award last night at a glittering ceremony at London’s Natural History Museum.

He saw off stiff competition from a number of other senior financial figures, including Nick Land, chairman of Ernst & Young, whose firm was named Big Five Firm of the Year.

Among the other honours, the Financial Director of the Year Award went to the BBC’s John Smith. Besides his work at the BBC, Smith is a member of the Accounting Standards Board and the 100 Group of FDs.

Last night’s awards ceremony was attended by more than 550 senior figures from the financial world. Awards were presented in 16 categories by Meera Syal from TV’s Goodness Gracious Me.

For awards news, see page 2 and our special Awards supplement starting on page 21.

For photos of the event log on to www.accountancyage.com