North East businesswoman wins top spot in Business Awards
North East businesswoman Sam Colquhoun has won the regional final of the National Business Awards Entrepreneur of the Year for the North East. The managing director of Newcastle-based Right Hand HR Ltd, Sam's success provides further evidence of the impact that female entrepreneurs are having in the world of business. Prior to setting up Right Hand HR, Sam's experience was gained in multi-nationals within the automotive, pharmaceutical and FMCG sectors. While at Bristol Myers Squibb and Procter & Gamble, her role was human resources director with responsibilities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Sponsored by Orange, the National Business Awards are judged independently by industry experts and funded by some of the UK's most forward-thinking businesses. They are acknowledged by The Chancellor of the Exchequer as the UK's "Business Oscars". The aim of the National Business Awards is to reward and recognise excellence, best practice and innovation throughout the UK business community. The Entrepreneur of the Year award sponsored by Credit Suisse is given to the individual who can best demonstrate a clear identification of a market opportunity, innovation, growth and strong financial performance in terms of both sales and profit growth. The beaten finalists in the North East were Amanda Pearce (diva creative ltd), Rae McGlone (National Locums Ltd) and Andrew Ainge (MetaFX Technology Ltd). Sam netted the top prize on the back of her work with Right Hand HR, a company which provides a comprehensive professional human resources service on an outsourced basis to organisations of varying size across the UK. In just four years Right Hand HR has grown rapidly established a client list that includes telecoms, pharmaceutical, FMCG, retail, media, personal care, and healthcare companies and, working with these companies, Sam and the team at Right Hand HR have introduced many innovative approaches to human resources management. Originally set up to provide services to the region, in year one RHHR extended to provide services on a national scale and in 2004 began to compete internationally providing HR services to clients in North America, Spain, Portugal and Germany. She says: "It's a great honour to have won such a prestigious award, especially against such a competitive field. I like to think it is a reflection of the increasingly entrepreneurial culture that is now prevalent in the North East". Asked about the key to her own business's success, she adds: "From day one, we've remained focused on the long term vision for the business. We started out with an original business idea and, rather than trying to cash in on other people's ideas and we looked to develop a successful business model that others would wish to follow". "We've also managed to create a culture in the company where everyone has a passion for developing and growing the business". Sam will now go forward to the National Finals in London on November 8th.
