Congratulations to Andrew on winning the Director of the Year – CSR category | R&B STAR ELECTRICAL WHOLESALERS

Congratulations to Andrew on winning the Director of the Year – CSR category

Congratulations to Andrew on winning the Director of the Year – CSR category at this year’s IoD London & South Director of the Year Awards.

The awards evening was held at the IOD offices in London on the 20th June and celebrate leadership talent, success and achievement.

David Stringer-Lamarre, IoD London Chair said: “After a year of BREXIT ups and downs for business, it’s inspiring to see so many UK directors leading the way in good governance, leadership & business performance.”

Andrew “It all started a year ago, I was at an event and met someone from the Institute of Directors who liked the sound of the business and invited me to a round table discussion with the bank of England on what policy could be put in place to small firms like us. At the meeting what was topical to us at the time was payday loans, we had quite a few members of staff struggling to balance their finances and taking out large loans at exorbitant rates of interest. As a business in extreme circumstances we have helped staff with interest free loans recouped from payroll over a number of years. We haven’t been able to help everyone, and each case is carefully considered on its merits (with those members of staff practicing our company values being helped if we can).

Several months after the event I was told that as a Director of a company displaying good practice I had been nominated for an award on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Really its nothing I’ve done, it’s the values and ethos of the business started by my Grandfather that I’ve been trying to put into practice. Without the support of the entire board and staff it wouldn’t be possible to achieve what we do for the wider community (charity events like our black-tie evening and more recently providing work experience for young people with learning difficulties / severe Autism).

Last night I was very honoured to accept the award on behalf of the company and can give everyone my assurances that our policy on CSR will not change moving forward. As many of you will now know we have employed a new Managing Director to take over from me the day to day running of the business and I will step into the role of CEO to work on the head office functions and higher-level strategy of the business. More details on this will be announced in next week’s flash briefing but I just wanted to say how proud I am of the company and what it seeks to achieve on the CSR front, we know that we need to change our ways to be more profitable so that the business is sustainable for the future and bringing Domenic in is a big part of that but fear not we will not lose site of the values that make this company great.”