Judging gets underway for the Bradford Means Business awards 2023

The Bradford Means Business Awards will take place on Thursday 20th July at the stunning new Walton View Hotel and with the entries closed for this year, the judges all met on Wednesday 16th May at the Great Victoria Hotel to judge the hundreds of entries to find our 11 winners and the business of the year.

The awards will cover Apprentice of the Year, Family Business, New Business, Best Employer, Manufacturer, SME, Social Mobility, Sustainability and more, with a new award for Creative Business as we build towards City of Culture in 2025.

The judges included:

Shafiq Khan, BHP
Shirley Congdon, University of Bradford
Michael Beaumont, Joseph Parr
Leanne Holmes, Bradford BID
Kelly McAllister, Bradford College
Andy Vernon, Solenis
Simmy Sekhon, Sekhon Group
Stephen Wright, Thorite
Justin Kerslake, Christeyns
Will White, Bradford 2025
Natasha Noor, Airedale NHS Foundation Trust
Shak Rafiq, Airedale NHS Foundation Trust
Nasreen Karim, BAME Chamber of Commerce
Satnam Khela, Bradford District Council

The judges lunch was chaired by Steve Lowe, Sales Director at LOCALIQ, Steve said ‘We have had a fantastic number of entries this year, across a wide and diverse number of businesses and provided the judges with the toughest challenge to find the three shortlisted and the winner in eleven categories.

From those eleven winners the judges then had the difficult task of finding the winner of winners, the best business of the year, which after much debate we arrived at our final choice. I want to thank the judges for giving up their time to judge the awards and to the sponsors for their kind support’.

We are now preparing for the awards night and look forward to a great night with pre and post awards entertainment and new host and the new venue. Tickets can be purchased now at store.newsquest.co.uk/tickets and are limited to a first come basis.