THERE were celebrations all round when Howard Rose was crowned the overall winner of the Solihull Observer and Marriott Forest of Arden Six of the Best Business Person Awards.
He was presented with his trophy at a special ceremony held at the hotel for the six nominees whose business success stories we have highlighted over the past year.
Prior to joining Ballsall Common School as the Funding and Publicity Director in 2012, Howard had spent twenty years working first in finance as a mortgage advisor and manager and later as a freelance property developer.
The 49-year-old said: “Once in the school and with my background, I started seeing fund raising and community involvement opportunities and my role sort of grew from that. I guess I have never looked back.”
And such has been his success in generating funds for the academy from the business community both regionally and nationally that he has even started writing for an education magazine telling other schools how to do it.
The runner up was Elaine Walker of Elaine Walker Accountancy.
She worked for Government agencies including the Forensic Science Service for 13 years and switched to accountancy temping after being made redundant but then took the plunge and launched her own accountancy and book keeping business from her home in Solihull.
That was nearly four years ago and now she is based at the Solihull Business Centre and has around 40 local companies on her books.
Our other four Six of the Best entrants, like Howard and Elaine were each honoured bi-monthly at a ceremony and were presented with an award.
They were David Edwards of David Edwards Insurance brokers together with his son Christopher and wife Sandy; Jane Vaughan of Belle Diva fashions and her chocolatier son Joseph; Jules Cardozo-Marsh whose shop sells her own range of fragrances and Kieran Smythe MD of KS Training Ltd.
